As the controversy surrounding objectionable scenes in the film ‘Cameraman Ganga tho Rambabu’ continues to affect its screening in several Telangana districts, a committee constituted by the Government has recommended cuts and modifications of nine scenes.
However, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), Telangana Journalists Forum (TJF) and Telangana Film Chambers (TFC) have asked the government to ban the film as it hurt the sentiments of people of the region. Telugu Desam Party leaders also pitched in by alleging that certain scenes were targeted at their leader N. Chandrababu Naidu.
Minister for Information and Public Relations D. K. Aruna on Saturday constituted the panel to watch the Pawan Kalyan starrer. Out of 1,532 cinema theatres where the film was released, 450 theatres are located in Telangana region. The panel comprising Allam Narayana, Allani Sreedhar, N. Shankar, T.Bharadwaj, Vijyender Reddy and Vandemataram Srinivas watched the film along with Mr. R. V. Chandravadan, MD, AP State Film and Television Development Corporation. While the producers volunteered to modify or delete six scenes/ dialogues that were found objectionable by the protesters, the committee suggested deletion of three more scenes and submitted the report to the Government. Meanwhile, there was support for the film in Seemandhra region. Fans of Pawan Kalyan visited the residence of film director Puri Jaganath and extended moral support to him.
On the other hand, TRS spokesperson D. Sravan demanded that the screening of the film be stopped at least till the issue of objections was resolved. They were in favour of the ban as it was not just few scenes but the entire film was objectionable as most of the characters and scenes in the film were against the Telangana movement.
Making films for entertainment and sending across social messages was good, but hurting the sentiments of a region’s people was not acceptable, Allam Narayana of TJF Devanand of Telangana Film Chambers said.
In a related development, Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao after a special screening of the movie in Vishakapatnam said there were no objectionable scenes. “There are no scenes that belittle people of Telangana and wondered why an issue was being made out,” he remarked. Government Whip T. Jayaprakash Reddy denounced the terror tactics adopted by the TRS leadership to target the movie.
