Just as it united people in Tamil Nadu, Jallikattu has breathed life into a weakening demand for Special Category Status for Andhra Pradesh.

And, protests on the ground apart, it is Twitter that has become the battleground.

Over the past two days, actor and Jana Sena Party founder Pawan Kalyan fired a volley of messages on the microblogging site, offering his support to the youth who wanted to hold a Marina-beach-like protest to demand SCS.

Pawan Kalyan pledged his party’s support to youth who circulated a message on social media calling for a ‘silent protest’ at Visakhapatnam’s Ramakrishna beach on Republic Day. The party, which doesn’t have any organisational structure, has good following in the North-Coastal AP.

Pawan Kalyan, who backed the TDP-BJP combine in 2014 elections and helped it win the polls, criticised the Centre for not granting the status and the Chief Minister for not fighting for it.

RGV’s criticism

Film director Ramgopal Varma, who is known for his witty, sarcastic and outspoken tweets, joined the fray on Friday. He took a dig at superstar Mahesh Babu for not expressing solidarity with the youth, while having backed youth in Tamil Nadu agitating for the lifting of a ban on bull-taming sport Jallikattu.

“Why @urstrulyMahesh supporting some Tamil festival culture more than survival problems of AP? Becos he's not as caring as @PawanKalyan ?”(sic) he tweeted to his 2.46 million followers.

Neither did he spare Pawan Kalyan. He wondered why the actor chose to remain at a distance and tweeting instead of joining the agitators.

Upcoming hero Sampoornesh Babu, who tweeted his support for the movement and even set off for the beach, was arrested in Visakhapatnam.

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