Mahesh Babu and Pawan Kalyan’s face-off for top honours
Mahesh Babu and Pawan Kalyan’s face-off for top honours
It was sort of
inevitable —Mahesh Babu and Pawan Kalyan’s face-off for this year’s top
honours with two films — Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu and
Atharintiki Daredi.
And just 10 days
after the jury at the South Indian International Movie Awards announced
that the two were up for the best actor gongs, fans are clocking in
extra hours to make sure their favourites win.
“The
final decision is entirely based on a voting system. The havoc began
when the poll opened to decide the winner. We got 4,30,000 hits in three
days and we crossed the million mark soon. On Wednesday morning, Mahesh
was leading, but that is set to change in the next few hours.
“We
have never experienced such a frenzy amongst the fan clubs and fans in
general,” reveals a source attached to the awards. Facebook and Twitter
are being bombarded with messages and the reasons cited by fans are
plain bizarre. One user claims Mahesh Babu must win this because he’s a
“better family man”, while another claims Pawan Kalyan must take the
award home for his Jana Sena party speech last year.
There
have been voices from abroad too. “In fact, 60 per cent of the votes
are coming in from the US and 15 per cent from the UK. And they are
showing no signs of stopping,” added the source.
Both
Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu and Atharintiki Daredi were massive
hits at the BO. The former, also starring Venkatesh, did very well in
the overseas markets and Pawan’s film became one of the top Telugu
grossers of all time.