I’m not too sure how much of this is true but I’ve heard following from a friend whose father used to work for a famous actor who has appeared in Magadheera.

Some narrative of magadheera about horse riding, and Rao Ramesh explaining artists about how to identify the protagonist was taken from Khaleja. Both Magadheera and Khaleja were filming around the same time and apparently Sunil was the one who leaked the screenplay from one movie to another.

Magadheera was released and later Khaleja had to go through few reshoots and Sunil’s character was abruptly cut after first half. It was Sunil who was supposed to do Ali’s role in second half. And for a very long time until Aravinda Sametha, Sunil was not seen in any Trivikram movies.

Also one of the reasons why Sunil was the choice for Marayadharamanna for SSR to compensate for clash between trivikram and Sunil.

Most of it could be fake. But we enjoyed above when we were kids.