Former Bigg Boss contestant and political analyst Tehseen Poonawalla has claimed that the attack on Saif Ali Khan's web series 'Tandav' is 'primarily to divert attention' from the leaked chats allegedly between Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami and former CEO of Broadcast Audience Research Council Partho Dasgupta.
The media professional shared a video on Twitter, on Monday, and wrote, "My take on the controversy surrounding the #tandavwebseries . The makers should not have given an Apology! The Indian entertainment Industry is the 2nd most commercially successful export after our IT &has made us a Soft Power!
How can a movie offend you? Don't watch it!"
For the unversed, chats between Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami and former Broadcast Audience Research Council head Partho Dasgupta are being widely circulated on social media. The purported WhatsApp conversations, which mentioned that Goswami was privy to the Balakot air strikes, are part of the chargesheet filed by Mumbai police in the court in the TRP case.
Meanwhile, faced with FIRs, fear of arrest and loud calls for a boycott for its alleged depiction of Hindu deities, the cast and crew of Amazon Prime Video's starry political saga 'Tandav' has issued an 'unconditional apology'.
A day after the Information and Broadcasting Ministry sought an explanation from Amazon Prime Video and BJP MP Manoj Kotak wrote to minister Prakash Javadekar, trouble escalated for the Ali Abbas Zafar directed thriller with an FIR against its makers in Lucknow and several politicians and others adding their voice to the 'ban Tandav' chorus.
As security was stepped up outside the offices of its star Saif Ali Khan and Amazon Prime in Mumbai, a four-member team of the Uttar Pradesh police left for the city and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's media advisor Shalabhmani Tripathi said the makers will have to "pay a price for hurting religious sentiments" by depicting Hindu gods in an objectionable manner.
"UP Police has left for Mumbai, that too in a car. There are strong sections in the FIR. Remain prepared,(you) will have to pay a price for hurting religious sentiments," Tripathi said in his tweet in which he tagged director Zafar, producer Himanshu Krishna Mehra, writer Gaurav Solanki and actors Saif Ali Khan and Zeeshan Ayyub.
At the end of a tense day that saw debate escalate around the show, which balances intrigue in Delhi's corridors of power and touches on current issues such as student unrest and farmer protests, the 'cast and crew' of 'Tandav', which literally translates to 'dance of destruction', issued a statement in a bid to defuse the situation.
(With inputs from PTI)
