Star Portrait-Chiranjeevi

Chiranjeevi is an Indian film actor, producer, politician and a member of the Indian National Congress. The birth name is Konidala Siva Sankara Vara Prasad who is born on 22 August 1955. Vara Prasad is the son of Late Sri Venkat Rao and Srimathi Anjana Devi. He is a popular Tollywood film personality who did his graduation with a degree in commerce from Y. N. College at Narsapur, later he moved to Chennai to pursue a career in acting and joined in Madras Film Institute. He is the Minister of State with independent charge for Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. Chiranjeevi married Surekha, who is daughter of well-known yesteryear comedian Allu Rama Lingaiah, on February 20, 1980. The couple blessed with three children’s who are Susmitha, son Ram Charan Teja, and another daughter Sreeja. His son Ram Charan is also a film hero.

Film Journey.

Chiranjeevi who also called as Chiru has started his film journey in 1978 through the film “Punadhirallu”. However, “Pranam Khareedu” released earlier at the box office. In 1979, he had eight major film releases and had it went up to 14 films in the following year. He also played characters with negative shades in films like “Mosagadu”, “Rani Kasula Rangamma” and the Tamil-Telugu bilingual “47 Natkal /47 Rojulu” which was directed by K. Balachander. He had completed thirty years of film journey, in these thirty years Chiranjeevi was starred in 149 feature films and now he is getting ready to complete 150 films but due busy with political life he is not yet started those films.

Political Life.

Chiranjeevi's entry into politics was highly anticipated in the media and political circles since 2007. But, he took a strong decision to start his own party in 2008.He inaugurated his party office in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad on August 10, 2008.On August 17, 2008 Chiranjeevi has addressed a press conference in his party office to announce his entry into politics. On August 26, 2008 in the public meeting held at Avilala near Tirupati, he announced the party name as Praja Rajyam. He unveiled the party flag in this meeting. In the year 2011 he merged his Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) into ruling party Indian National Congress. After more than one year of merging his party into Congress, he was given the Rajya Sabha seat in 2012. He took oath as Rajya Sabha member in 2012 and he was sworn in as the Union Minister of State, Ministry of Tourism, and Government of India in 2012 itself.

Social Services.

In 1998 he started Chiranjeevi Charitable Trust which includes Chiranjeevi Blood and Eye Banks. It is the state's largest recipient of blood and eye donations. The trust has made over 68,000 blood donations through and 1,414 eye donations. The Blood Bank of the CCT helped over 80,000 people and the Eye Bank has helped about 1000 people in the state of Andhra Pradesh since its opening. It has also won the "Best Voluntary Blood Bank Award" by the AP State Government for the past 4 years. Chiranjeevi Charitable Trust has crossed the one lakh mark in collecting blood and more than 96,000 people have been helped with blood by this blood bank.

Honors

Once Popular entertainment magazine Filmfare, quoted him "Bigger than Bachchan" as reference to Bollywood’s Amitabh Bachchan. News magazine The Week hailed him as "The new money machine". Chiru’s film “Gharana Mogudu” is the blockbuster movie which was the first Telugu film to gross over 100 million rupees at the box office. The film made Chiranjeevi the highest paid actor in India, catapulting him to hit the cover pages of all national weekly magazines and India Today had a caption, "Bigger Than Bachchan". Veteran director K. Balachander once commented that "Chiru has both Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth in him”.

Awards

Chiranjeevi received the Padmabhushan in India in the year 2006. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Andhra University in the same year. He is an eight-time winner of Filmfare Award for Best Actor and a four time winner of Nandi Awards.