At Sunday's 'Veera Simha Reddy' event, Nandamuri Balakrishna courted controversy. While talking about NT Rama Rao's contemporaries, the 'Akhanda' actor made a reference to the legendary SV Ranga Rao as well as ANR. He used the word 'Thokkineni' after invoking the surname 'Akkineni'. While the two words rhyme, they were used with a touch of disrespect.

The 'Akkineni, Thokkineni' remark has ostensibly offended the Akkineni family members. On Tuesday, Naga Chaitanya and Akhil Akkineni came out with a statement. But they didn't invoke the name of Balayya to avoid overt controversy.

The 'Majili' actor and the 'Most Eligible Bachelor' actor said that disrespecting the three "pillars" (read NTR, ANR and SVR) of Telugu cinema is like degrading ourselves. By saying so, the Akkineni brothers indirectly said that Balayya has degraded himself.

The comments have sparked a flurry of trolls. Balayya's fans are saying that ANR, in an interview on the show 'Open Heart With RK', in the 2000s, said that he never was in admiration of NTR. "After NTR became a CM for the second time, several film industry people came to me and asked me to represent Telugu cinema before the government, as wished by NTR. I told them I was not interested. I asked them to go tell NTR I wouldn't like to interact with him," ANR said at that time.

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— chaitanya akkineni (@chay_akkineni) January 24, 2023

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— Akhil Akkineni (@AkhilAkkineni8) January 24, 2023