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Hyderabad: From a remote village in coastal Andhra to stardom and now to the centrestage of Andhra Pradesh politics, Chiranjeevi has come a long way.
As the Telugu superstar gets set to announce the birth of his political party, millions of fans have gone gaga and predicted that he will be the next chief minister of the state.
Chiru, as he is popularly known among his fans, is set to alter the equations by bringing back glamour to the state politics, which was once dominated by the demigod of Telugu cinema N.T. Rama Rao.
The 53-year-old, who has been into films for three decades, last Monday inaugurated his party office in upmarket Jubilee Hills here.
First public meeting
The actor, who dragged too long the suspense around his political entry, will be addressing a news conference today to announce the birth of his party. He will then formally launch the party with the first public meeting in the temple town of Tirupati Aug 26.
Chiranjeevi was born on Aug 22, 1955 in Mogalturu, a small village in the coastal district of West Godavari. His name was Konidela Siva Shankara Varaprasad and he was the eldest of three sons of Anjana Devi and Venkat Rao, an excise department employee.
Varaprasad attended schools in five different places because of his father's frequent transfers. He completed his schooling from P.R. Sharma Junior College at Ongole and graduated in commerce from Narasapur College.
After graduation, Varaprasad moved to Chennai to seek a career in the film industry and joined a film institute in 1977.
Chiranjeevi's first big hit was Khaidi, which was released in 1983. By then he had acted in 60 movies. The films that followed gave him the image of an action hero.
He has been virtually ruling the box office by producing big hits like Hitler, Master, Sneham Kosam, Annayya, Indra, Stalin and Shankar Dada MBBS. He has won the Nandi award for best actor thrice and the Filmfare (Telugu) award seven times.
The popular actor, who has fan clubs across the state and abroad, enjoys immense popularity. In recent years he has been involved in social service activities.
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