Veteran actor Jagapathi Babu will be playing YSR’s dad in the upcoming biopic of the late chief minister of Andhra Pradesh who died in an air crash a few years ago. YSR’s father, YS Raja Reddy, was a powerful person in Andhra Pradesh and was killed by his rivals in a bomb blast in 1998 and played a pivotal role in his son’s political life.

Jagapathy Babu is expected to have a powerful role to portray in the biopic. Interestingly, the actor has been taking up some challenging roles in both Telugu and Tamil films in the recent past, so it would be rather a cakewalk for him to get into the skin of the character, say sources close to the film.

Yathra is one of the most important upcoming films in Tollywood right now. Being the biopic of the late chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, his followers will get to know what his life was like and the struggles he underwent to reach the pinnacle.

Directed by Mahi V Raghav, the film has the Malayalam mega star Mammootty playing YS Rajashekar Reddy. Veteran actor Suhasini Mani Ratnam has been signed up to play an important role in the film but it is not clear as to what her character in it is.

Yathra is being produced jointly by Vijay Chilla and Shashi Devi under the banner of 70MM Entertainments. The shooting of this film began a few days ago in Hyderabad and will be wrapped up within a couple of months.

Reports are that Yathra will hit the marquee as a Sankaranthi release next year. Yathra will be released in Telugu as well as Tamil and Mammootty will be dubbing for both the versions, reports say.