Controversial scenes deleted from Vijay's 'Sarkar'

Succumbing to pressure from the AIADMK, the producers of actor Vijay-starrer 'Sarkar' on Friday deleted controversial scenes and muted dialogues that were critical of the ruling party and its government. In a related development, the Madras High Court restrained the Chennai city police from arresting director A R Murugadoss till November 27 after the latter applied for anticipatory bail fearing arrest.

While scenes relating to the throwing of freebies like mixer grinders and wet grinders into fire have been removed, references to Komalavalli, the original name of late chief minister J Jayalalithaa and the Public Works Department (PWD) have been muted. The re-censored movie was screened from the evening show after necessary approvals from the Censor Board here.

The developments came after theatres screening the movie in several cities came under attack from AIADMK cadres and filing of cases against Murugadoss. The move of deleting the controversial scenes came amid speculation that the director of the movie, Murugadoss, will be arrested by the police, who clarified that they have no such plans. However, Murugadoss approached the high court, which gave him relief from arrest till November 27.

Sources said the movie was brought to the editing table late on Thursday night and the controversial scenes were deleted after which it was taken to the Censor Board for a fresh certificate. “We received the re-censor certificate in the afternoon. The cut version of the movie was screened from the evening show,” a source said. In a fresh incident, AIADMK cadre attacked the manager of a cinema theatre which was screening 'Sarkar' on Friday morning.

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AIADMK's opposition to the movie and demand by ministers for removal of the controversial scenes triggered angry reactions from the tinsel town with superstars Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan saying protesting against a movie approved by the Censor Board was not acceptable.

"It is against the law to hold protests seeking removal of some scenes from a Censor board certified film and trying to stall the screening and damaging the banners. I strongly condemn these,” Rajinikanth said. ‘Sarkar’ has many politically-loaded dialogues and seems to suggest that Vijay is the only person who could fill the “leadership vacuum” created due to the death of stalwarts Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi.

Close to a dozen ministers had attacked Vijay and demanded that the producers remove the controversial scenes from the movie. This is not the first time that Vijay’s movie has landed into a controversy, his previous film ‘Mersal’ stoked a row when it had dialogues criticising GST and demonetisation.

'Sarkar' begins with Sundar Ramasamy, played by Vijay, a corporate honcho touching base in Chennai to cast his vote. And when Sundar finds that his vote has already been cast by someone else, he takes legal recourse and gets the election results declared null and void. In the process, he ends up taking on the political might of the rulers. The movie contains imitations of almost every politician in Tamil Nadu.