Pahlaj Nihalani's Biggest Disclosure on the Release of Udata Punjab

After being removed from the post of Censor Board of Film Certification (CBFC) in India, Pahlaz Nihalani has unearthed the surprise during his tenure in the board. The former CBFC chairman told the Youtube channel Laharen in interviews that the pressure on him from the government was not to pass the movie 'Udata Punjab' released last year (2016).

In India, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the BJP Government led by Narendra Modi had clearly said that the film should not be pass. The entire interview has been posted on the YouTube Channel. The former president of the board in the video says that the ministry had told them not to pass 'Udata Punjab'.

He further said, "I had the pressure of not passing the film from many places on me. The ministry also told me not to pass the film. The Punjab government (Akali Dal and BJP coalition government) itself ordered that the film should not pass. Being the chairman of the censor board, I passed the film in view of the rules and regulations of the charge which was on me."

Significantly, Pahlaz Nihalani made these disclosures after being removed from the post of CBFC. Now the question raised on the image of the current Modi government.

Let us state that in the last year political outburst started in Punjab to take on 'Udata Punjab. Indirectly, the reason for this was the Punjab assembly elections to be held in 2016.

The reason for this was that the content shown in the film about drugs spreading in Punjab was exposing the drug face of Punjab somewhere. During that time, the state's ruling party, the Akali Dal and the BJP coalition government, sleep was gone. Because of the film, there was no flaw in the vote bank in Punjab, so too much pressure was made to ban it.

The Akali Dal of its own and the BJP coalition government had asked the CBFC to ban the film saying that the wrong image of Punjab has been presented in it.

However, while sitting in the opposition, the Congress had targeted the Akali Dal demanding a film ban. The Aam Aadmi Party also alleged that the elections are going to be held in Punjab, hence the film is not being released due to political reasons.

Significantly, in the 2016 elections, Congress had badly defeated the Akali Dal and the BJP coalition.