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Referring to the episode of deletion of certain scenes from "Rajneeti" apparently following objections by the Congress,
Jaitley, a former minister for information and broadcasting wrote in his blog: "Moral policing has been rapped
repeatedly by many in the electronic and print media. Curiously, the crusaders against moral policing have mostly
maintained eloquent silence on the political policing by the ruling party."
Jaitley compared this to the 21-month Emergency period between June 25 1975 and March 21 1977, chronicling
incidents of bans and deletions on films like "Aandhi", "Kissa Kursi Ka" and "All the President's Men".
"The Congress party believed that the leading actress (in 'Aandhi') had a character similar to the then prime
minister...it was banned in July 1975, " Jaitley said in his blog.
He said that after the producer cut out certain scenes and restructured it, the film was cleared to release and another
film on the Watergate episode titled "All the President's Men" was blocked during the time and released after the
Congress was voted out of power in the Lok Sabha elections of 1977. The reels of the film "Kissa Kursi Ka" were
burnt.
Jaitley also wrote about bans on notable celebrities like Kishore Kumar, Dev Anand and Dilip Kumar during the
Emergency period further asserting Congress party's alleged forced deletion of certain scenes from the soon to be
released film "Rajneeti" in order to obtain a U/A certification.
Congress is said to have "threatened" the film with an adult certification.
Congress has, however, denied any interference with the certification of the film.
Media reports, however, suggested that the censor board sent the movie to "a super censor" for clearance before
certifying it and that the censor board chief Sharmila Tagore herself suggested the names of the three Congress
representatives - Tom Vadakkan, Pankaj Sharma and Sanjeev Bhargava to review the film.
"Rajneeti" stars an ensemble cast of Naseeruddin Shah, Katrina Kaif, Ranbir Kapoor, Nana Patekar, Ajay Devgn,
Arjun Rampal and Manoj Bajpai and will hit the cinemas next week.
"In the last few years, " he wrote to end his blog "we have seen an effort of politicizing the Election Commission
through partisan appointments.
The CBI has become a political tool. The parliament has recently expressed
concern over both authorized and unauthorized telephone tapping. The Congress party now has become a national
censor of what entertainment we will watch. I hope the list of aberrations does not continue to increase".
Monday, May 31, 2010 11:05 IST