Pratik Gandhi to star in YS Jagan biopic

This could possibly be the biggest Tollywood news in recent times — we have exclusive information that filmmaker Mahi V. Raghava, whose Yatra, a biopic of the late Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy, was a great success, is planning another biopic — this time on the current Chief Minister and Rajasekhar  Reddy’s son, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.

The director sees Jagan as a great inspiration — how an underdog went on to become the leader of the masses (much like his father) — and feels his story has to be told beyond the Telugu region, and remembered for generations to come. Also, Mahi feels the story will resonate with all sections of society.

After an extensive search, the filmmaker has zeroed in on Scam 1992 actor Pratik Gandhi to play YS Jagan on screen. He feels Pratik has an incredible resemblance to Jagan, and he is tailor-made for the part.

“When director Mahi approached Pratik Gandhi for the part, the actor was thrilled to come on board after listening to the gripping narration,” says a source, adding, “One of the reasons for casting a Bollywood actor is because it will be a Pan-India film.”

Tentatively, the narrative of the biopic will start before Rajasekhar Reddy’s death, and then go on to show how Jagan floated his own political party (YSRCP), the challenges he faced, and finally, how he came to power in the 2019 Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections.

Pre-production work is set to commence as soon as the pandemic-related issues settle down. It may be remembered that soon after the success of Yatra, Mahi surprised fans with his announcement that he will also be canning a sequel to Yatra. So it would be interesting to see Jagan’s biopic has a different script from the sequel. Meanwhile, Mahi, who was flooded with offers after Yatra, is known to have been working on a satirical drama, starring Shraddha Srinath