Mahesh Babu and Pawan Kalyan’s face-off for top honours

Mahesh babu-Pawan Kalyan

It was sort of inevitable —Mahesh Babu and Pawan Kalyan’s face-off for this year’s top honours with two films — Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu and Atharintiki Daredi.

And just 10 days after the jury at the South Indian International Movie Awards announced that the two were up for the best actor gongs, fans are clocking in extra hours to make sure their favourites win.

“The final decision is entirely based on a voting system. The havoc began when the poll opened to decide the winner. We got 4,30,000 hits in three days and we crossed the million mark soon. On Wednesday morning, Mahesh was leading, but that is set to change in the next few hours.

“We have never experienced such a frenzy amongst the fan clubs and fans in general,” reveals a source attached to the awards. Facebook and Twitter are being bombarded with messages and the reasons cited by fans are plain bizarre. One user claims Mahesh Babu must win this because he’s a “better family man”, while another claims Pawan Kalyan must take the award home for his Jana Sena party speech last year.

There have been voices from abroad too. “In fact, 60 per cent of the votes are coming in from the US and 15 per cent from the UK. And they are showing no signs of stopping,” added the source.

Both Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu and Atharintiki Daredi were massive hits at the BO. The former, also starring Venkatesh, did very well in the overseas markets and Pawan’s film became one of the top Telugu grossers of all time.