Telegu actor Chiranjeevi is in a soup because he attended and blessed an inter caste marriage much to the chagrin of the bride’s parents.

The occasion was the marriage of noted Dalit activist-writer K Padma Rao’s son Chetan with Nalini, a 24- year-old engineer belonging to an upper caste.

The matinee idol attended the wedding, held at Film Nagar Club here on Saturday last, and blessed the couple. He also spoke spiritedly about the virtues of inter-caste marriage and the need for creating a casteless society.

This is in contrast to Chranjeevi’s own experience last year when his own daughter eloped and engaged in an intercaste marriage that caused him much misery.

The film star’s presence at the Dalit boy’s wedding led to a bitter row with the bride’s parents who alleged their daughter was forced into the wedlock and kept in confinement by the family of the Dalit writer and with the “active support of the actor”.

Incidentally, Padma Rao had recently joined Chiranjeevi’s Praja Rajyam party whose main plank is social justice.

Accusing the actor of staging a drama only to gain political mileage for his newly-launched party, Nalini’s parents T Subba Rao and T Mani went to a local television channel with their version of the story and made allegations against the actor and the Dalit writer.

But appearing before the media last night along with her husband, Nalini said she has married on her own free will.

Meanwhile, her parents today met Home Minister K Jana Reddy and Telugu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu separately and sought justice.