West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Day 1 of the India Today Conclave East 2017 that she wants to arrange for the Padmavati premiere in Kolkata.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today announced that she would welcome Sanjay Leela Bhansali and the team of Padmavati with open arms and would make special arrangements for the same.
Speaking at the India Today Conclave East 2017, Mamata said, “If they cannot release it in any other state, we will give special arrangement for Padmavati. Bengal will be very happy and Bengal will be proud to do that.”
The Padmavati row is increasingly seeing politicians divided over it. While Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan called for a ban on the film in his state even if it is cleared by the censor board, Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh said that ‘nobody will tolerate distortion of history’.
Mamata, a few days ago, found herself on the other side of the raging Padmavati debate. She condemned the ongoing controversy over the Sanjay Leela Bhansali film, labelling it as “unfortunate” and a “calculated plan” to destroy freedom of expression.
“The #Padmavati controversy is not only unfortunate but also a calculated plan of a political party to destroy the freedom to express ourselves. We condemn this super emergency,” Banerjee had tweeted.
The Trinamool Congress supremo exhorted the film industry to protest in unison. “All in the film industry must come together and protest in one voice.”
The film has been mired in controversy over conjectures that it “distorts history” regarding Rajput queen Padmavati, a contention that Bhansali has repeatedly denied. Rumours that a dream sequence featuring Turk emperor Alauddin Khilji and Rajput queen Rani Padmavati were the beginning of the attacks on Bhansali and vandalising of Padmavati sets.
However, the Padmavati team has time and again clarified that let alone a dream sequence featuring Alauddin Khilji and Rani Padmini romancing, Deepika (who plays Padmavati) and Ranveer (who plays Khilji) don’t even share screen space in the film.
The release of the film has been “voluntarily” deferred from its scheduled date of December 1.
Some Hindu groups have been protesting against the movie’s release while some political outfits have demanded that its release be deferred in view of the Gujarat Assembly elections.
The makers have also not got clearance yet from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), which said the application from the makers was “incomplete”.