Was Chiranjeevi kept in the dark about Mahesh's role?

It has widely been reported that director Koratala Siva approached Mahesh Babu to essay an important role in Megastar Chiranjeevi starrer ‘Acharya’. All media outlets have carried the news and the discussion went on for many days. Yet, the team ‘Acharya’ didn’t care about either deny the news as they recently did in the case of gossip that Ram Charan is not investing single paisa in the film. They remained silent even as the media went on writing news.

Now, Megastar Chiranjeevi quipped that he’d no idea about how this news broke out. He even went on saying that they had never discussed approaching Mahesh for it. Now comes the question: was Chiranjeevi kept in the dark about Siva Koratala meeting Mahesh Babu? Or is this just plain PR exercise.

Even if Chiranjeevi was not aware of Koratala approaching Mahesh Babu, why did the megastar asked his team to deny the news earlier?

It looks more like an attempt to maintain good relations with Mahesh Babu.