MAA Elections 2021: Vishnu Manchu beats Prakash Raj for President post; tweets statement

It's official!  Vishnu Manchu is the new President of the Movie Artists Association (MAA) of the Telugu film industry. The actor-producer was elected as the new President after defeating veteran actor Prakash Raj. The winners were announced after an intense poll battle, which included over a month of campaigning and sensational statements exchanged between the contesting parties. 

The elections were held at the premises of Jubilee Hills Public School.  Locals had gathered to catch a glimpse of the stars.  Even additional security had been arranged by the police to prevent any untoward incidents. 

Vishnu Manchu beats Prakash Raj for MAA President post

Vishnu Manchu beat Prakash Raj by 106 votes after polling 380 votes. He will serve his term from 2021-23.

His panel members also won the polls for the other posts, like Gautam Raju winning joint secretary post, vice-president post going to Madala Ravi and Y. Raghubabu and M. Siva Balaji being elected as general secretary and treasurer respectively.

Actor Srikanth beat Mohan Babu to be elected as the Executive Vice President to bag a win for the Prakash Raj panel. Other members of the Prakash Raj panel to win were the Bannerjee for the second Vice President and Uttej as joint secretary.

Over 650 persons of the eligible 900 voters came out to cast their votes. Many prominent names had arrived to cast their votes.

This included Chiranjeevi, Ram Charan, Jaya Prada, Nandamuri Balakrishna and Pawan Kalyan. Other well-known names like Prabhas, Mahesh Babu, Allu Arjun, Vijay Deverakonda, Anushka Shetty, Ravi Teja, Ileana D'Cruz, Hansika Motwani, Trisha, Jr NTR, among others skipped voting due to professional commitments.

Vishnu Manchu, who is the son of veteran Telugu actor, Mohan Babu, took to Twitter to extend his gratitude over his victory.  He wrote that he was 'humbled' by the love and support that his film fraternity had shown towards him.  He added that the counting for the votes for the posts of EC Members, Joint Secretary and one of the Vice Presidents would be starting at 11 AM on Monday.

He shared that he would be issuing a statement after that.  

Among the others to congratulate him was veteran actor-politician Chiranjeevi.