Plagiarism charges: First Trivikram, now Sukumar!

Sahitya Academy’s Yuva Puruskar winner Vempalli Gangadhar has now leveled allegations that his stories are being plagiarized by the Tollywood directors. Without naming any director, he accused of Telugu film industry of stealing his story named ‘Tamila Coolie’, which is about the smuggling of red sanders in the Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh and coolies from Tamilnadu landing in cases.

The only prominent film that is currently being made about red sanders smuggling is Sukumar’s ‘Pushpa’ starring Allu Arjun.

The film’s first look revealed this much information. But the film’s shoot has not yet begun.

Without knowing the script or reading it entirely, writer Vempalli Gangadhar seems to have concluded that Sukumar is stealing his story that was first published in Sakshi daily.

Hundreds of news articles appeared in various newspapers about red sanders smuggling and the plight of Tamil coolies. The subject is well-documented in the public domain.

Unless one reads the script written by Sukumar, one cannot authoritatively accuse him of copying the ‘contents’ from the story written by Vempalli Gangadhar.

If the Sukumar’s premise of ‘red sanders smuggling’ is generic, there is nothing to be faulted.

Interestingly, this is not the first time that the writer Vempalli Gangadhar making allegations against the Telugu directors. He also accused of Trivikram lifting his story ‘Mondi Kathi’ in NTR starrer ‘Aravindha Sametha’. There indeed was a reference about ‘mondi kathi’ in the film. Trivikram has been facing plagiarism charges from the beginning of his career, though.

‘Pushpa’ starring Allu Arjun and Rashmika Mandanna is set to begin its shoot shortly.

‘Pushpa’ is produced by Mythri Movie Makers.

It remains to be seen how will Sukumar respond to Gangadhar’s accusations.