It’s hard to tell if a portrayal of life on wheels affects an actor’s real-life characteristics, especially if the characters are activists, politicians, police officers, or lawyers. Vijayashanti played all these roles with elan in her career spanning over four decades in 175 films including Telugu (121), Tamil (39), Kannada (5), Malayalam (4) and Hindi (6) . Dubbed ‘Lady Amitabh Bachchan’ for garnering female-driven action roles, when heroines were mere dolls in hero-dominated films, Vijayashanti held her own with directors writing stories for her and creating characters that celebrated justice and femininity.
The breakthrough film ‘Osey Ramulamma’ catapulted her to a new level of fame with the character of Ramulamma. To this day, her role as Ramulamma is etched in people’s memory. This movie made her entry into Telangana electoral politics a bit easy.
Ms Vijayashanti, who was a member of the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) when the historic Telangana Bill was passed in Parliament in 2014, has a unique political career spanning over 25 years starting with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and now ending up in Congress.
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Career in movies
She made her acting debut at the age of 13 in the Tamil film directed by PS Nivas Kallukkul Earam in 1979, where Bharati Raja played himself. Soon after, she made her Telugu debut with actor Krishna Khiladi Krishnadu. The 1983 movie Neti Bharatamdirected by T Krishna, was a turning point in her career, and with Pratighatana (1985), Vijayashanti became the go-to actor for roles that defined women’s emancipation. 1990 Mohan Gandhi movie Cartaviam was a landmark film for Vijayashanti where she played a police officer who vowed to bring a sex offender to book.
Vijayashanti acted with most of the heroes in Telugu films, but her combination with Chiranjeevi (19 films) and Balakrishna (17 films) brings to mind the most memorable and popular films.
Among her films where she peaked in her comedy act, Mondi Mogudu Penki Pellam (1992) comes first. Vijayashanti played the role of a newly married girl from Karimnagar which also made her speak the Telangana dialect long before new age leading ladies started using this dialect. The innocent and charming portrayal of a young Telugu girl who travels to the US and falls in love with a white American in Jandhyala’s Padamati Sandhyaragam will be one of her career highlights, along with her role as a cobbler’s wife in K Viswanath’s Swayamkrushi and a rape victim who rebels against her perpetrators Osey Ramulamma.
Movies like Vandemataram, Indrudu Chandrudu, Alludu Engineer, Stuartpuram Police Station, Gang leader, Muddula Menalludu and many others are both her movies and male leads.
The 1989 movie Koduku Diddina Kapuram it was one of many versions of it The parent trap, where Vijayashanti and Krishna play a couple and Mahesh Babu (then a child actor) plays their son. It was a moment of reckoning for Vijayashanti and Mahesh Babu when they came together for the film Sarileru Neekevvaru in 2020.
Political career
He ventured into politics by joining the BJP in 1998 at the insistence of senior leaders M. Venkaiah Naidu and Ch. Vidyasagar Rao. He was also considered close to LK Advani. He joined the Telangana movement by launching the ‘Telangana Talli Party’ (Mother Telangana Party) and later joined the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) at the invitation of the then TRS (now BRS) leader K. Chandrashekhar Rao to fight for a separate state. She was elected to Parliament in 2009 from Medak as a TRS candidate.
However, differences arose between her and BRS leader K. Chandrasekhar Rao. He was suspended from the TRS and joined the Congress party just before the 2014 elections after the Telangana announcement.
Ms. Vijayashanti traveled with the Congress party for some time before joining the BJP in December 2020, claiming that only the BJP had the capacity to defeat Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. However, she found herself almost alone at the party without being given a specific role. In fact, he was almost ignored in the party after the state BJP leadership changed. He hit the news again now as he quit the BJP and prepared to rejoin the Congress in the presence of either Rahul Gandhi or AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge.
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