Youth Congress activists threaten to disrupt release of 'The Accidental Prime Minister'

Another movie based on real-life characters. Another display of intolerance and outright threats. This time, the movie is ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’ and those threatening violence are activists of the youth wing of the Congress Party.

Satyajeet Tambe Patil, the president of the Maharashtra State Youth Congress, has written to the makers of the film demanding a special screening before its scheduled January 11 release, news agency ANI reported. He also threatened to stop the screening of the film across India if the filmmakers did not make the cuts suggested by the office bearers of the Youth Congress.

The threat came just hours after the trailer of the movie was released. It was addressed to the producers of the film, and was printed out on a letter head of the Maharashtra State Youth Congress.

The Accidental Prime Minister is based on the book of the same name by Sanjaya Baru, who served as Manmohan Singh’s media advisor. It deals with the Prime Ministership of the former economist, and features former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and present party head Rahul Gandhi as characters.

“If the said movie is released without prior screening for our office bearers and without making necessary changes recommended by us that we find out after viewing the movie then it will be understood that you are doing this deliberately and we have other options to stop the screening of the same across India for which you and your team would be completely held responsible,” read the part of the letter that was a threat.

Maharashtra Youth Congress writes to makers of #TheAccidentalPrimeMinister & asks to show them the movie before release & if some scenes are found unfactual, they should be deleted else, Youth Congress will not let the movie be screened anywhere in the country. pic.twitter.com/CUGJ98hmv8

— ANI (@ANI) December 27, 2018

“It is desired from you to organise special screening of the movie for our office bearers before the public distribution and release of the above movie and if there is any unfactual scenes or story is being published in the film to malign the Image of Congress Party and it Leaders then we demand that same should be edited and deleted from the movie, which can be concluded by us only after viewing the movie,” Patil said in his letter.

He said that he had raised the demand after he watched the trailer of the movie. He said he had found “that facts have been played with and presented in incorrect manner” with regards to Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and the Congress Party.