Star speeches scripted beforehand

By J.R.PRASAD

Hyderabad, March 18: The high-voltage dialogues delivered by Junior NTR, the star campaigner of Telugu Desam, or Praja Rajyam chief Chiranjeevi may sound off-the-cuff. But they are all scripted beforehand.

As in the case of movies, the “performance” of the stars on the campaign trail involves much homework and behind-the-scenes activity. Of course, they make it sound natural, since they are accomplished actors.
From the TD to the Praja Rajyam, every political party is relying on expert wordsmiths to prepare speeches for their star campaigners. Junior NTR created a wave of sorts through his powerful speeches in his ongoing state-wide tour. For this, he is getting ample help from the Paruchuri brothers, noted dialogue writers of Tollywood. In fact, the TD has set up an exclusive wing in the NTR Bhavan to prepare speeches for the party chief, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, and star campaigners such as Balakrishna and Junior NTR.
This wing is headed by Mr Ramesh Babu, the former MD of the Newstoday news network of Eenadu daily. Other professional writers are helping him in the task.
The Praja Rajyam has a similar wing headed by the former journalist, Mr Vikram, who used to pen speeches for Mr Naidu. In fact, Mr Naidu mentioned this “poaching” when the Praja Rajyam alleged that it had deputed some moles to learn party secrets. To write an interesting speech is no easy matter. If a wordsmith wants to pen power-packed dialogues for Junior NTR, he should know the style of Senior NTR. To write speeches for Chiranjeevi, the writer should add dollops of Chiru style to socio-economic problems.