HYDERABAD: The counting for the Movie Artists’ Association (MAA) elections held on Sunday saw may twists. For the most part of the counting, the difference between the two panels was not considerable. Initially, the Vishnu panel seemed to be trailing, but it went on to sweep the contest by a huge margin. There was a lot of suspense till 10.30 pm at Jubilee Hills Public School, where the elections were held on Sunday.
With the results, the brouhaha surrounding the election of MAA’s new governing body has finally ended. The victory sparked off celebrations by Vishnu Manchu’s supporters, who greeted each other and burst crackers at the counting centre. Prakash Raj extended his greetings to Manchu and to other members of the panel.
For the first time since the formation of MAA, out of 900 eligible members, the 2021 election witnessed the highest-ever voter turnout of 673 members casting ballots, 201 members more than the 2019 election.
Conspicuous by their absence were actors Venkatesh, Mahesh Babu, Prabhas, Jr NTR, Allu Arjun, Naga Chaitanya, Rana Daggubati and Vijay Deverakonda. Among the female leads, actors Pooja Hegde, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Rakul Preet Singh, Anushka Shetty, Trisha Krishnan, Ileana D’Cruz, Rashmika Mandanna, Keerthy Suresh, Hansika Motwani and Tamannaah Bhatia were absent. Actor Chiranjeevi has urged that post-elections, there should be unity among the members and everyone should ensure that such personal attacks never occur in MAA again.
Naga Babu quits
In a surprising turn of events, actor Naga Babu, who extended support for Prakash Raj in the elections, has tendered his resignation from the primary membership of MAA. He stated that his resignation letter would be sent in 48 hours.