It keeps both the film and the MNS in the news,” said NCP leader Nawab Malik. “They are good friends, and this is just a promotional activity they have undertaken. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has called the row a match-fixing exercise planned by Thackeray and Salman Khan. “If the MNS has a problem, it should take it to the state government instead of issuing threats.”Īs the police machinery has proved ineffective against the MNS in the past, Nirupam said, theatre owners should be allowed to deploy private security personnel. “These threats of violence against YRF and theatre owners are aimed at politicising the issue and are for ulterior gains,” said Nirupam. Meanwhile, Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam has criticised Raj Thackeray’s party for its threats, calling it a classic example of “MNS goondaism”. But here, we are hardly getting any theatres because of the producer’s pressure tactics,” he said. “There have been many instances when both Marathi and Hindi films have been screened simultaneously, and both have done well. As per the conditions laid down for issuing licences to multiplexes, it is mandatory for them to screen Marathi movies.Īctor Ankush Chaudhari, who plays the lead role in ‘Deva’, said that currently the Marathi film has very few options. “The state government should cancel the licences of theatre owners if they give Marathi films a stepmotherly treatment,” the MNS leader said. READ: MNS threatens protest against Salman Khan’s Tiger Zinda Hai, demands screen space for Marathi films Khopkar said he has talked to the state’s cultural affairs and Marathi language minister Vinod Tawde, asking him to intervene and take action against multiplexes and single-screen theatres that do not screen the Marathi movie. “YRF is dictating terms to multiplex owners and trying to deny a chance to Marathi films, and that too in Maharashtra. “If ‘Deva’ does not get prime-time space, we will not allow YRF to shoot anywhere in the state,” warned Khopkar.
The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) on Wednesday upped its ante against Yash Raj Films (YRF), the producer of Salman Khan-starrer ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’, threatening that it would not allow the production house to shoot any of its films in Maharashtra in the future, if it did not concede prime-time space to Marathi movie ‘Deva’.Īmong the costliest films produced under the YRF banner, ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’ is scheduled to release across India this Friday.Īmeya Khopkar, president of the MNS film workers’ union, alleged that YRF has been arm-twisting multiplexes to show their film on the maximum number of screens, thereby pushing ‘Deva’ out of cinema halls.