Aye Hero! Chal peeche

Minutes after megastar-turned-politician Chiranjeevi drew flak for failing to follow the queue as he came along with his son and actor Ram Charan, daughter Sushmita and wife Surekha to exercise his vote at a polling station in the posh Jubilee Hills neighbourhood, Hyderabad on Wednesday, the incident caught the attention of the whole nation. Be it the extensive coverage by the local electronic media, followed by the national channels, G Karthik, the NRI voter who questioned Chiru, has turned into a polling hero. His heroics were raved by one and all on the social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter, so much so that ‘#Voter to Chiranjeevi’ trended on ‘India Trends’ for a good 12 hours, causing further embarrassment to the actor and his family. Despite the actor’s clarification that he had just left the queue to see if his name was on the voting list and that he has not violated any rules, it didn’t go well with the Twitterati.

Going by the Twitter handle @isriniwas, Sriniwas tweeted, “Mr. Chiru you said just to check your name in voter list? Good. Don’t u know your polling booth also? Then how will u lead people?” Another handler Gireesh Kodali, going by his user id @K_Gireesh, had this to say: “That effort from the voter is gutsy, heroic and bold. Not many would have done that. Take a bow voter.”

At the same time, there were others who found no fault from Chiru’s side bearing the fact that it was the polling authorities who have asked him to jump the line. “No matter how much I hate Congress, I have to agree Chiranjeevi did no mistake. #Voter to Chiranjeevi just for his 5 mins of fame,” posted Teju from his handle @bipolarbrat. In fact, many of the Twitterati were at their sarcastic best too. Check this out by @mauveblu: “LOL .........CHIRANJEEVI claims he had gone directly to the booth to check whether his name had MEGA on the list.” Even the actor’s son wasn’t spared. “Thank God...it was Voter to Chiranjeevi only. Imagine if it where his son Mr.Teja...his 'goonda' bodyguards would have flexed their muscles,” read post of Praveen Kumar, whose handle is @LordLabakDos.

Surprisingly, the Tollywood fraternity chose to stay mum over the episode. Even the other vocal celebs like Ram Gopal Varma, SS Rajamouli, Sekhar Kammula and Lakshmi Manchu who are active on Twitter and Facebook and have often commented on the goings-on did not tweet a word either in defense or against him. Looks like the Megastar’s ire is not really what they would want at this juncture.

Here are some more reactions:

Voter to Chiranjeevi: Aye Hero! Chal peeche

- Aman @Wildlifer

Price paid by Chiru to be a part of congress. Chiru is a law abiding citizen, could never had done, what media is reporting. Voter to Chiranjeevi

- sanjitta @Dr_Sanjitta

That NRI voter deserves a puraskaar .. Ab ki baar............................. Voter to Chiranjeevi

- Pratik Prasenjit

@pratikprasenjit

Must be of AAP. Hats off to the young guy. Do you need special treatment? Voter to Chiranjeevi

- CA.NEHA @Nk3010Neha

Voter to Chiranjeevi: What he asked might be right, but the way he says that I am also a celebrity staying in Jubilee Hills is showy

- arani chaithanya @chaithanya93

Voter to Chiranjeevi: Never underestimate the power of common man

- Lochi @lochitaksi

Voter to Chiranjeevi: If this guy had stopped another politician in AP, he would've been skinned alive. Chiranjeevi is humble & soft politician

- Satish @satsrockin