Book me a room on the moon: Adoor Gopalakrishnan tells BJP leader

New Delhi: The moon and not Pakistan is now the favoured destination for sending dissenters. Filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan on a BJP leader asking him to go to the moon if he can't tolerate 'Jai Sri Ram' slogans.

"It is a good suggestion by this BJP friend that I should go to the moon, if he can book a room for me on moon and buy me a ticket then it will be a nice stay."

Kerala Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson B Gopalakrishnan said filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan should "move to the Moon or another planet" if he was unable to tolerate the chanting of "Jai Shri Ram" in India.

Three days after 49 eminent personalities wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expressing concern over incidents of lynching and alleged weaponisation of the slogan "Jai Shri Ram", 62 others have hit back, accusing them of "selective outrage, false narratives and a clear political bias" in an open letter.

Noted film director Shyam Benegal on Friday said the communication did not malign the image of Ram in any way. Benegal was one of the signatories to the letter.

"Lord Ram is the foundational figure of our country. Where is the question of maligning the image?" Benegal told CNN-News18 in an interview. The authors of this new letter include Censor Board of Film Certification (CBFC) chief Prasoon Joshi, Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut, and classical dancer and Rajya Sabha member Sonal Mansingh.

"An open letter which has been published on July 23, 2019, and addressed to Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has astonished us. Forty nine self-styled 'guardians' and conscience keepers' of the nation... have expressed selective concern and demonstrated a clear political bias and motive," the letter read.

"To us, the undersigned, this document of selective outrage comes across as an attempt to foist a FALSE NARRATIVE... to negatively portray Prime Minister Modi's untiring efforts.

The signatories of the 'open letter' have, in the past, kept silent when tribals and the marginalised have become victims of Naxal terror, they have kept silent when separatists have issued dictates to burn schools in Kashmir, they have kept silent when the demand for dismembering India were made..." the letter continued.

The signatories to the new letter also attacked the 49 for criticising the government, while arguing that "... in fact under the Modi regime we see maximum liberty to differ, to criticise and to abuse the government and dispensation in power - the spirit of dissent has never been stronger".