West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday questioned the timing of the release of The Accidental Prime Minister ahead of the Lok Sabha elections and claimed such films were made by twisting facts, PTI reported. The film was released on Friday.
“All are accidental prime ministers,” she said, claiming that releasing the movie just before the elections was akin to “staging political plays”. The Trinamool Congress chief also said that if people were making such a movie, there should also be films like “The Disastrous PM”, in an apparent reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The film features actor Anupam Kher as former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It is based on Sanjaya Baru’s 2014 memoir of the same name and details Singh’s relationship with the Congress party’s Gandhi family.
The chief minister said that making such films was “unethical”. “I do not do politics with the Congress and we have [ideological] differences,” she said. “But I believe that what is being done by twisting facts is unethical.”
The film has been mired in controversy, and a public interest litigation was filed in the Supreme Court ahead of its release. The petitioner had sought an urgent hearing against the Delhi High Court’s decision to dismiss her plea, claiming that the film and its trailer had defamed the constitutional post of the prime minister. The Supreme Court, however, had rejected an urgent hearing on Thursday.
Youth Congress activists on Friday also demonstrated outside a cinema hall in Kolkata screening the movie, which was later cancelled. West Bengal Culture Minister Indranil Sen clarified that the state government had not given any instructions to stop the screening.
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