NTR: Mahanayakudu

The film begins, after NTR announces his party as Telugu Desam. N. T. Rama Rao (Nandamuri Balakrishna) designs his flag & agenda. He wants to tour across the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. So, he orders his son Nandamuri Harikrishna (Nandamuri Kalyan Ram) to repair an old Chevrolet van to use it for his campaign and names it as Chaitanya Ratham. He then starts his journey, with Harikrishna as his charioteer and his son-in-law Daggubati Venkateswara Rao (Bharath Reddy) also accompanies him. He struggles hard by traveling all over the state for restoring the dignity of the Telugu people and acquires their faith & admiration. The center gets frightened as Andhra Pradesh is major-league to them. So, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (Supriya Vinod) advances the elections and also appoints Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy (Varla Ramaiah) as the new Chief Minister. In that situation, Nadendla Bhaskar Rao (Sachin Khedekar) prepares the list of candidates who are ex MPs & MLAs with bad conduct. Rama Rao denies and replaces them with new young blood.

Thereupon, the Congress party looks down on Nara Chandrababu Naidu (Rana Daggubati) as he is the opponent’s son-in-law, yet he contests against his father-in-law’s party but loses. In the elections, Rama Rao wins with a high majority and becomes the 10th Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. Meanwhile, humiliated Chandrababu Naidu decides to leave politics but Rama Rao recognizes his caliber and inducts him into the party. There onwards, Rama Rao toils a lot and wears Saffron as a symbol of his initiation. He always puts check on Bhaskar Rao’s dominance and makes many revolutionary changes in the governance such as ₹2  kg rice for poor people, an equal share to a daughter in father's property, abolishing Patel-Patwari system, creating Mandal system, Telugu Ganga project, etc. He also decides to eradicate corruption and does not spare even his own, to establish a corrupt-free state. Annoyed by all this, Bhaskar Rao aims to demoralize Rama Rao by making a few of his men go against him but Rama Rao does not yield. Eventually, Indira Gandhi does not allocate proper funds to the states. When nobody dares to question, Rama Rao stands up to achieve the rights. Self-esteemed Indira Gandhi decides to stop him for which she appoints Thakur Ram Lal (Chandra Prakash Thakur) as a new Governor to the state.

Parallelly, Basava Rama Tarakam (Vidya Balan) gets diagnosed with cancer and falls terminally ill. Eventually, Rama Rao also suffers from heart problems, so both of them fly to the US. At that point in time, Bhaskar Rao makes secret negotiations with Indira Gandhi and she orders to dethrone Rama Rao with the help of Ramlal. The shrewd politician, Chandra Babu Naidu gazes his intentions and takes all precautionary measures. Soon after Rama Rao’s arrival, Bhaskar Rao submits Motion of no confidence and fraudulently becomes Chief Minister by backstabbing. Immediately, Rama Rao moves to Raj Bhavan to demonstrate his strength of MLAs. But Ramlal does not relent and gets him arrested. After release, Basavaramatarakam fires up his energy, advocates to gain public support and promises to hold her breath until his return. Now Rama Rao relaunches his Chaitanya Ratham, mobilizes the support of people, other Chief Ministers of the country and anti-Congress political parties. During that plight, Chandrababu Naidu allies him as a backbone by safeguarding the MLAs in a secret place to avoid horse-trading. They all decide to land in Delhi with their MLAs to prove their majority. At every level, Indira Gandhi creates many obstacles but Rama Rao & Chandrababu successfully cross the hurdles and meet President of India Zail Singh (Guldeep) who mandates to conduct confidence motion. But Bhaskar Rao cleverly postpones the Assembly sessions and makes all attempts to provoke Rama Rao. During the period of 1 month, a lot of public consciousness arises who revolt against Congress Govt. So, Indira Gandhi also accepts her defeat, dissolves her support to Bhaskar Rao and unwillingly replaces Shankar Dayal Sharma (Satya Thummala) instead of Ramlal. Shankar Dayal Sharma removes Bhaskar Rao and restores Rama Rao as the Chief Minister. Immediately, after his swearing-in ceremony, Rama Rao reaches his wife. Finally, the movie ends with Basavaramatarakam departing in his lap.

The music is composed by M. M. Keeravani for both the parts. The music released on Sony Music India. The audio and trailer launch of the biopic was held at JRC Convention Center, Hyderabad on 21 December 2018. Veteran Telugu stalwarts Krishna, Krishnam Raju, Mohan Babu, K. Raghavendra Rao, N. T. Rama Rao Jr. and others attended the function along with complete Nandamuri family.[8]

The movie was released on 22 February 2019.[9]

The film ended up as the biggest commercial failure in Nandamuri Balakrishna's career.[10]It was a disaster at box office.