Indu Sarkar: Cong workers hound Madhur Bhandarkar, press conference cancelled

Bhandarkar stayed put at his hotel on Bund Garden road even as Congress workers kept vigil amidst police presence in the hotel lobby.

Filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar who arrived in Pune to promote his controversial film Indu Sarkar was hounded by Congress workers throughout the day and forced to cancel his scheduled press conference and a visit to an educational institute. Bhandarkar stayed put at his hotel on Bund Garden road even as Congress workers kept vigil amidst police presence in the hotel lobby.

Neil Nitin Mukesh plays Sanjay Gandhi in Indu Sarkar.

While the film has faced 16 cuts from the Censor Board, the director has attracted the wrath of the Congress workers over some portions of the film that they find objectionable.

“I have been threatened with blackening of my face in Lucknow, a chappal garland in Allahabad and even issued a legal notice from a woman who claims to be Sanjay Gandhi’s daughter,” Bhandarkar said while speaking to HT.

Congress city unit president Ramesh Bagwe and activist Ramesh Iyer were present with a large number of party workers, sitting cross-legged in the lobby and shouting slogans of ‘Indira Gandhi Amar Rahe’ and ‘We strongly condemn Bhandarkar’.

Bagwe defended the protests by saying, “We are holding a peaceful agitation. We want to discuss with Bhandarkar and urge him to delete the controversial part about Indira Gandhi in the movie.”

When the crowd of Congress activists began growing in numbers, DCP (Zone 2), Pravin Mundhe stepped in and requested the activists to stop the agitation. “Some of the Congressmen came to the hotel to register their protests against Bhandarkar’s new film Indu Sarkar. But Bhandarkar refused to speak with them for he was not in a condition to speak to them, which we conveyed to the protesters and since there was no permission and no intimation given to the police, we will take legal action against the protesters.”

Speaking to HT, Bhandkar said he made reality cinema where everything was well researched. “I am using everything that is documented to create my story. This film is not based on the Emergency, but Emergency is used as a backdrop in the film which is about two married people and their ideologies, while the film is political in nature,” he added.

Extremely unhappy with the Congress protests he said, “I am appalled by the treatment and this ruckus that the Congress workers created first at the venue and later in the hotel.”