Chiranjeevi at the road show in Warangal district. (PTI)

Hyderabad, Nov. 4: The welcome was hardly what he had expected, but Chiranjeevi didn’t “eggonise” over it too much.

He had a quick shower, shampooed his hair, and was back on his campaign bus.

The film star-turned-politician, who recently launched his party Praja Rajyam, had entered Nekkonda village in Andhra’s Warangal district today when the eggs came flying.

As the eggs — there were five in all — broke on his shoulders and the yolk splashed on his head, the assailants, said to be from the Telengana Rashtra Samiti which dominates the district, demanded that Chiranjeevi make his stand clear on a separate state.

Although shaken, the actor recovered fast.

“My salute to all the people gathered here and especially to those who gave me such a juicy welcome,” he said.

“I have been more categorical and clear than anyone in the political fray. I will go to any extent for the cause of Telengana,” he added.

The eggs, clearly, had served to egg him on.

A little later, he got off his specially designed Volvo bus for a shower and a shampoo in a garden house nearby. Then he was back on the campaign trail.

The actor has already toured the north coastal districts of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam. After a break of three weeks, he began his Telengana tour four days ago and sent out strong signals in favour of a separate state by offering to support any bill in the Assembly or Parliament if any party moved one.

Police have arrested three persons for the assault. Although sources said the three were TRS supporters, party leaders disowned them.

“They are not from the TRS,” said T. Harish Rao, nephew of party chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao, though the TRS boss, who has been leading the campaign for a Telengana state, later told supporters to exercise restraint.

Chiranjeevi’s party has called a bandh and protest meetings tomorrow in Warangal. “Such an attack is unheard of in a democratic society,” said Praja Rajyam spokesperson Parakala Prabhakar.

Chiranjeevi, however, is not the first leader in Andhra Pradesh to have received such a welcome.

In the mid-nineties, chappals flew at former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao in Kadapa town, 350km from Hyderabad, when he came to attend a meeting with then chief minister K. Vijayabhaskar Reddy.

It was widely reported that supporters of the current chief minister, Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, who hadn’t found a place in Vijayabhaskar Reddy’s cabinet, were behind the attack.

Chappals also rained on NTR in 1995 when the screen icon-turned-politician came with his wife Lakshmi Parvathi to a Hyderabad hotel where his son-in-law N. Chandrababu Naidu, who wrested power from him, had housed party MLAs during the toppling game.