Close on the heels of the Election Commission deferring the release of Vivek Oberoi starrer on Prime Minister Modi till the last round of elections in mid May, the poll panel has now also asked streaming channel, Eros Now, to stop the webcasting of its 10-episode web series, again on Mr Modi, till the election process wraps up. As per latest info, the uploaded five episodes have been taken down.
Talented TV and film actor, Mahesh Thakur, who plays the senior version of Mr Modi, says, “As an actor, I have no issue with this order, for elections are above everything.”
As the series directed by Umesh Shukla traces the life of Mr Modi from being a student leader to becoming the head of the country, it was divided into 2 tranches for telecast. The first five episodes, which featured Ashish Sharma as the young Modi, were uploaded at the launch, while the remaining five were to be shown from the coming Monday. The remaining five will now be aired only after results are declared on 23rd May.
“I don’t think it will impact the show, for we have already shown the first five. I guess the election commission, having educated minds, felt that the remaining five would have upset the level playing field as we were showing Mr Modi as a political leader (Chief Minister of Gujarat to PM in 2014).”
Could the entire series not have been held back? “Well, the makers did not anticipate such a call for our story was based on a book which is already out in the market. We only gave it an audio visual format. So nothing wrong with our product as well,” ended Mahesh.
IWMBuzz also tried to touch base with Eros Now, but could not get through to them till the time of filing this story.