NEW DELHI: Former prime minister Manmohan Singh chose to ignore the controversy around a film based on him even as a miffed Congress slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for targeting the Gandhi family over the issue. The film “The Accidental Prime Minister” based on the book “Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh” written by Singh’s former media adviser Sanjaya Baru, will be released on Jan 11, 2019, just months before the next Lok Sabha polls.
The Congress and the then United Progressive Alliance (UPA) had rubbished the book which was released just a month before the 2014 national polls. The book had claimed that then party chief Sonia Gandhi controlled the government while Singh played second fiddle.
Party sources said during the UPA years, Sonia always supported Singh’s decisions and fully backed him even when he had put at stake the survival of the government over the Indo-US civil nuclear deal in 2008.
Congress communications head Randeep Surjewala said his party would continue to question Prime Minister Narendra Modi on issues like rural distress, unemployment.
No ban in MP
The Congress in Madhya Pradesh made it clear on Friday that it had not banned the film and had no plans of doing so but, a senior spokesperson of the Madhya Pradesh unit of the party said, “After seeing the film’s trailer, I’ve written to the director requesting that the title be changed and also scenes containing objectionable references be removed. If it’s done, we’re OK with the film.”
Not backing down: Kher
Actor Anupam Kher lashed out at the politics surrounding the film. “We talk about freedom of expression. When we get a chance to exercise it, we are stopped. Cinema has to move on...” he said. Earlier, he tweeted saying “I am not going to back off. This is my life’s best performance. Dr Manmohan Singh will agree ...”