New Delhi, May 27: The controversy over the certification of Udta Punjab has reached the doorsteps of the Union information and broadcasting ministry.
An examining committee of the Central Board of Film Certification, or the censor board, had refused to certify the crime thriller last week, saying the movie had "too many abuses", after which the producers - Balaji Telefilms and Phantom Films - approached the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT).
Today, one of the producers, Anurag Kashyap, urged the ministry to "intervene and resolve" the matter even as the tribunal was yet to hear the case, government sources said.
The Abhishek Chaubey-directed film on Punjab's drug menace, starring Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Alia Bhatt, is slated to release on June 17.
"Though the ministry does not normally interfere in the day-to-functioning of the censor board, we will see exactly what complaints the producers have in this case," an official in the ministry's film division said today.
Censor board chief Pahlaj Nihalani accused the producers of making a "mountain out of molehill" and said they should have followed procedure rather than rushing to the ministry.
"The film had come for certification to us last week and the first screening committee found the film full of abuses, particularly by Shahid's character, a rockstar named Tommy. Then we suggested (to the producers) to go for a reapplication through a revising committee that would have seen the film. But they decided to go to the FCAT directly. Now I am hearing that they have gone to the government with the complaint. This is bizarre," Nihalani said.
Kashyap was not available for comment despite attempts to reach him. But a senior executive with Phantom Films, which he co-founded, suspected the main problem was "political" and related to the portrayal of the state's "drug menace rather than "the use of expletives".
"The censor board has behaved in the most immature way by refusing certification to the film. If they (the board members) had problems with certain cuss words, they would have asked for cuts but looks like they are troubled with the theme of the film because of some political reasons," the Phantom executive said.
Punjab's ruling Shiromani Akali Dal, a BJP ally, had two weeks ago expressed reservations over the portrayal of the state's people in the film. An Akali Dal MLA, Karan Virsa Singh Valtoha, was quoted as saying that the film was an "outcome of a trend to defame Punjab and its youths". The state goes to the polls next year.
Early this month, Ek Nasha, a music video by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and poet Kumar Vishwas focusing on the state's drug problem, had gone viral on social media. The songs' lyrics allegedly included insinuations that the Parkash Singh Badal-led state government was promoting the drug trade. Akali leaders had reportedly been considering suing Vishwas for defamation at the time. Delhi's ruling party is looking to win power in Punjab.
The Udta Punjab trailer- released on video-sharing site YouTube last month - had drawn millions of hits within a few days.
