West Bengal bans 'The Kerala Story', BJP claims DMK conspiracy in Tamil Nadu

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday announced that the state government had decided to ban the movie 'The Kerala Story'. 

Briefing the media, West Bengal CM said the decision had been taken to avoid any incident of hatred and violence and to maintain peace in the state.

To note, even veteran actors have said that the ban of the film was not needed. Actress Shabana Azmi said: "Those who speak of banning 'The Kerala Story' are as wrong as those who wanted to ban Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaadha. Once a film has been passed by the Central Board of Film Certification nobody has the right to become an extra-constitutional authority."

Off the screen in Tamil Nadu?

The Bharatiya Janata Party in Tamil Nadu alleged that the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has taken 'The Kerala Story' off the screens in the state in a systematic fashion.

Accusing the state government of "abuse of power to hide the truth",  BJP Tamil Nadu vice president Narayanan Tirupathi said that if fundamentalist forces had issued threats against screening of the movie, action should have been taken against them and instead, 'removing the movie from cinemas' is not only cowardice but also dangerous.

In a statement here, he claimed that the state government has taken the film off the screens in a planned manner. The movie could not be banned legally, he said and alleged abuse of power to hide the truth. The film brought to people "awareness and precaution" on the Modus Operandi of terror outfits like the Islamic State (IS) and the DMK regime is taking pride in scuttling the screening of such a movie, Narayanan alleged.

On May 7, President of Tamil Nadu Theatre and Multiplex Owners Association M Subramaniam, popularly known as Tiruppur Subramaniam, said a few multiplexes that had screened the film decided to withdraw it.

He had said: "The film was only shown in a few multiplexes owned by pan-India groups, mostly PVR. Locally-owned multiplexes had already decided not to show the film, as it did not have any popular stars. In Coimbatore for instance, there were two shows so far -- one on Friday and one on Saturday. Even those did not do well. Given that, theatres decided that it was not worth going through the threat of protests." 

"The Kerala Story", starring Adah Sharma, was released in cinemas on Friday and was initially portrayed as "unearthing" the events behind "approximately 32,000 women" allegedly missing from Kerala.

According to the CPI(M) and the Congress in Kerala, the film falsely claims that 32,000 women got converted and radicalised and were deployed in terror missions in India and the world. The filmmakers later changed the figure in the film's trailer. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on May 5 credited the movie, produced by Vipul Amrutlal Shah's Sunshine Pictures, for bringing out terror conspiracies and using it to attack the Congress during an election rally in poll-bound Karnataka.

Last week, the Kerala High Court also refused to stay the release of the film and said the trailer does not contain anything offensive to any particular community as a whole.

Recently, the Madhya Pradesh government announced that "The Kerala Story" will be tax-free in the state, while Uttar Pradesh minister Brajesh Pathak said it will not oppose any proposal to grant similar status in the state.