It’s hard to fathom if a reel life portrayal influences an actor’s real life traits, especially if the characters are activists, politicians, cops 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). Called ‘Lady Amitabh Bachchan’ for garnering women-oriented action roles when heroines were mere glam dolls in hero-dominated films, Vijayashanti held her own with directors scripting stories for her and creating characters that celebrated righteousness and womanhood.
The revolutionary film ‘Osey Ramulamma’ catapulted her into a new fame level with the character of Ramulamma. To this day, her role as Ramulamma is etched in people’s memory. That film made her entry into Telangana electoral politics a bit easy.
Ms. Vijayashanti, who was one of the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) member when the historic Telangana bill was passed in the Parliament in 2014, has a unique political career spanning over 25 years that started from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and now ending up in Congress.
Also Read: Coalition politics to assume centre stage after 2024 LS polls, says K. Chandrasekhar Rao
Career in films
She made her debut at the age of 13 in PS Nivas-directed Tamil movie Kallukkul Earam in 1979, where Bharati Raja played himself. Soon after, she debuted in Telugu with actor Krishna in Khiladi Krishnudu. The 1983 film Neti Bharatam, directed by T Krishna, was a turning point in her career, and with Pratighatana (1985), Vijayashanti became the go-to actor for roles that define women’s emancipation. Mohan Gandhi’s 1990 film Kartavyam was a landmark film for Vijayashanti where she played a cop who vows to bring a sexual assaulter to book.
Vijayashanti acted with most of the heroes in the Telugu films, but her pairing with Chiranjeevi (19 films) and Balakrishna (17 films) brings to mind the most memorable and popular movies.
Among her films where she peaked in her comic act, Mondi Mogudu Penki Pellam (1992) comes first. Vijayashanti aced the role of a newly married girl from Karimnagar who also made speaking the Telangana dialect cool long before the new-age leading ladies started using that dialect. Her 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-high points, along with her role as a cobbler’s wife in K Viswanath’s Swayamkrushi and a rape victim who rebels against her perpetrators in Osey Ramulamma.
Films like Vandemataram, Indrudu Chandrudu, Mechanic Alludu, Stuartpuram Police Station, Gang Leader, Muddula Menalludu and many more are as much her films as they are of the male leads.
The 1989 film Koduku Diddina Kapuram was one of the many versions of 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
She ventured into politics by joining BJP in 1998 at the insistence of senior leaders M. Venkaiah Naidu and Ch. Vidyasagar Rao. She was also considered close to L.K. Advani. She joined the Telangana movement launching her “Telangana Talli Party” (Telangana Mother’s Party) and later joined the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) on the invitation of then TRS (now BRS) chief K. Chandrashekhar Rao to fight for a separate state. She was elected to the Parliament in 2009 from Medak as a TRS candidate.
However, differences cropped up between her and BRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao. She was suspended from TRS and she joined Congress party just before the 2014 elections after Telangana was announced.
Ms. Vijayashanti sailed with the Congress party for quite 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 lonely in the party with no specific role given to her. In fact, she was almost ignored in the party after the state BJP leadership was changed. She shot to the news again now as she has quit BJP and set to join Congress again, in the presence of either Rahul Gandhi or AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge.
