Hyderabad: Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao on Tuesday said that Dadasaheb Phalke awardee, actor Paidi Jai Raj, born on Telangana soil, rose to the top of the Indian film industry and spread the region’s glory at the national level.
KCR paid tributes to Paidi Jairaj on his 113th birth anniversary (September 28). On the occasion, he remembered Paidi Jairaj’s services to the national film industry.
He said that the journey of Paidi Jairaj in the first phase of the Indian Film industry from ‘Mooki’ to ‘ Talkie’ is commendable. As the very first “action hero” on the Indian silver screen, Jairaj is a ‘pride’ for Telangana. “It is a great moment that Paidi Jairaj became a top hero in Bollywood even before the early stage of the Telugu film industry,” KCR remarked.
Apart from his unique acting skills, the chief minister hailed the first-generation Telangana film actor Paidi Jairaj, who also excelled as a director and producer and received the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award. The chief minister extolled Jairaj as the ‘founder of the Telangana film industry’.
KCR said that Paidi Jairaj has acted in more than 300 films not only in Hindi but also in Marathi, Oriya, Bengali, Punjabi, Konkani, Gujarati, Malayalam and many national languages and became the doyen of the Indian film industry.
Recognising his services to the film industry, KCR said the state government honoured Paidi Jairaj by naming the meeting hall in Rabindra Bharati by after ‘Paidi Jai Raj Preview Theatre’.
He said that the respect for the Telangana language, culture and literature increased in the film industry with the state government’s constant efforts in the home state.
After the formation of Telangana, the chief minister said that Telangana youth are excelling in many fields in the film industry with the encouragement provided by the state government through the Department of Culture. He wished the Telangana film industry to develop more in the future.
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