Kaushal or KeDi, a word used to refer to a delinquent. Chandru "incorporated [his] own dialogues while acting, eventually turning the serious drama into a comedy". The play became widely popular and the sobriquet 'Mukhyamantri' stuck to him. As of January 2020, the play completed its 700th show across India and outside. Chandru's career in films began in 1983 when he was cast by producer N. Veeraswamy to play a supporting role in Chakravyuha. His other notable role came in the comedy Ganeshana Maduve (1990) that saw him play an overbearing landlord, alongside Anant Nag. Political life Chandru accepted the ticket offered by the ruling Janata Party to contest the assembly elections from Gauribidanur. This followed after actors Anant Nag and Shankar Nag denied. Chandru won the seat by a margin of over 6,600 votes. Speaking about an incident to The Times of India of his stint as the Member of the Legislative Assembly, he said that the officers who assisted him when he "decided to get tough with the sand-mining mafia controlled by a liquor baron in his constituency" were transferred, and when he complained to Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde, he was to told to "get practical". Following the term, he contested unsuccessfully from the Chikballapur constituency in the 1989 Lok Sabha elections. His party merged with two other parties at the time to become Janata Dal. In the early 1990s, with "rift between [Ramakrishna] Hegde and Deve Gowda worsening", Chandru quit the Janata Dal. In 1991, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. He was nominated as a member of the Karnataka Legislative Council in 1998 and for the second time in 2004, completing the term in 2010. In 2008, he was appointed the chairperson of the Kannada Development Authority. The position was the same rank of a cabinet minister, and Chandru was retained by the subsequent governments, despite his resignation from BJP in 2013. He cited "dedicat[ing himself] for the cause of the State and Kannada language" as the reason for the quitting. In March 2014, he joined the Indian National Congress (INC). In his tenure as the chairperson of the Kannada Development Authority (KDA), Chandru advocated very strongly for the protection and promotion of the Kannada-language. The beginning of his tenure saw a significant development in that, on 31 October 2008, Kannada was given the status of a classical language. Recommendations made by him in view of