Will not show ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’ to Congress says Anupam Kher

Actor Anupam Kher, whose forthcoming film ‘The Accidental Prime Minster’ has landed in political controversy, has made it clear that makers of the film will not show their film to Congress party to get green light for the release of their film.

Anupam Kher was interacting with the media along with producer of ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’, Jayantilal Gada on Friday in Mumbai.

The film stars Anupam Kher as Manmohan Singh, the economist and politician who served as the Prime Minister of India from 2004 to 2014 under the United Progressive Alliance.

Maharashtra's Youth Congress wing has issued a written warning to the makers of The Accidental Prime Minister. They have asked them to arrange for a special screening for them and post their factual corrections, they should release the film.

Talking about threat makers of the film receiving from Youth Congress, Kher said, “Yesterday after trailer release of the film, we received a letter from a Youth Congress leader so, initially, I ignored it but slowly it became very big news. Since today morning, we are hearing news that they (Youth Congress) will ban the film from other ways as well if we will not show the film to them before its release.”

When asked Kher whether makers of the film will organize special screening of the film for Youth Congress, he said, “No why should we organize special screening for them? If we do that then what’s the use of CBFC. The only person that I would like to organize this film’s screening will be Dr. Manmohan Singh. I think Dr. Manmohan Singh was not the Prime Minister of Congress party. He was Prime Minister of the whole country. In fact, they should encourage people to watch it. They should first watch the film without any pre-conceived notion.”

Kher added that makers of the film have followed standard procedure to get censor certificate for the film, he said, “We have followed a standard procedure where we have shown our film CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification). We got approval from CBFC and we didn’t made any kind of promotion of the film till the time, we didn’t got clearance from CBFC. We got censor certificate for the trailer much earlier despite that, we didn’t released the trailer. We waited to release the trailer till we got clearance from CBFC for the entire film. CBFC asked us to cut and alter few scenes to get clearance and we did that so after all this, there is no third power who will tell us that you should show your film to us. I think we should stop this practice at some point.”

Talking about journey of making the film, Kher said, “I think ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’ is a revolutionary film from cinema point of view. It is the first time in independent India, we are making a film with the real names and real people. We have lawfully bought the rights of the book from Sanjay Baru who has written this book in 2014. Since 2014 to 2018, there wasn’t any discussion about it. In 2016 our producer Sunil Bohra announced that he is making a film based on the book.”

Kher added that opposing release of a film is an unfortunate thing, he said, “I feel opposing release of the film is very unfortunate thing. We often talk about freedom of expression. Big political leaders talk about freedom of expression but when there is time to implement that then, they say we will not let this happen. I think cinema has to move on and people have to on. We have to practically show maturity and sort of allow people to make film.”

Kher questioned why biopics on political figures have to get clearance from political parties, he said, “We are now in the world of biopics. We can make film on Milkha Singh ji, Thackeray saab and mathematician Anand Kumar then, why can’t we make film on about political decade where we can show that what actually happens in PMO (Prime Minister’s Office), so we have basically done that.”

Kher added that Youth Congress should have raised their concern when Sanjay Baru wrote memoir form the same name in 2014, he said, “This film is based on Mr. Sanjay Baru’s book and he was appointed by PMO as a media advisor to Prime Minister. He has written his book on the basis of what he saw in Dr. Manmohan Singh tenure as a Prime Minister. I feel they (Congress) they should have object the book when it released but cinema has larger reach so, that’s is the problem with them.”

The Accidental Prime Minister’ is a biographical political drama film, presented by Rudra Production (UK), Bohra Bros in association with Dr Jayantilal Gada (Pen India Limited). It is directed by Vijay Ratnakar Gutte and written by Mayank Tewari.

The film is based on the 2014 memoir of the same name by Sanjaya Baru.

‘The Accidental Prime Minister’ will hit cinemas on 11 January 2019.