A week after being forced to leave a press conference in Bengaluru, Karnataka, by a pro-Kannada group during the promotion of his latest film Chithha, actor Siddharth recently addressed the matter, quelling all circulating speculations. As the actor was interacting with the media at the SRV Theatre in the city, a few men walked in and asked him to leave. They also told the organisers to end the event immediately in support of the ongoing Cauvery protest. A protester asked them, “We are fighting here and the Cauvery water is going to Tamil Nadu. And he is promoting the film, do you guys want this?” Meanwhile, the incident had ignited substantial controversy in both Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, drawing widespread condemnation. Kannada superstar Shivarajkumar apologised to Siddharth for the ill-treatment on behalf of the Kannada film industry. While there were rumours doing the rounds suggesting that Siddharth was told to leave as there was a bandh in force that particular day, the actor recently clarified that no such strike was announced that day. "Chithha was released in three languages — Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam — on September 28. On the day of its release, there was no bandh anywhere. Consequently, we booked a private auditorium and paid for it to host a press conference on the same day. Suddenly, a few persons barged in, and as you witnessed, events unfolded afterwards. Now, there are many false claims circulating that we deliberately scheduled the press conference on a bandh day for our own interests. This is untrue. There was no bandh on that day; it occurred the following day. Nobody had the legal right to impede my work on that day. We genuinely did not commit any wrongdoing," Siddharth said while talking to the media. Stating that he can't accept the apologies offered by superstar Shivarajkumar and actor Prakash Raj because "they did nothing wrong and it wasn't their fault in any way," Siddharth thanked the two and others who expressed solidarity with him. "They didn't have to do such a kind thing, but they did it because of their generous hearts. I thank them for it" he added. Meanwhile, Chithha also faced a bit of a struggle in Telugu as the film didn’t get any takers there. Siddharth had earlier said that many people in Telugu asked him who would see his films. “In Tamil Nadu, Udhayanidhi Stalin garu watched the film and said he hadn’t watched a film like this and his Red Giant Films brought the rights. In Kerala, the leading producer Sree Gokulam Cinemas’ Gopalan sir watched the film and said he hasn’t watched such a film in his 55 years and bought my film. In Karnataka, KGF producers said they haven’t watched such a film and bought the Karnataka distribution,” he said. “In Telugu, people asked me who will watch Siddharth’s film. I said, ‘If I give a good film, they will watch it.’ This film should have been released on September 28, but I couldn’t get to theatres because of this," he added. In his review of the film, The Indian Express' Kirubhakar Purushothaman noted: "Chithha is one of those rare amalgamations of everything perfect. This is easily Siddharth's best performance by far. It is painful to watch him suffer through it all without respite."
