Mersal’s prickly comments against demonetisation to be deleted

This followed protests by the Tamil Nadu unit of the BJP against the comment of Vadivelu in the movie.

Regarding the comment by Vijay towards the climax of the movie against the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the producers were yet to take a decision, said the source.

However, he told DTNext that only this weekend’s shows of the movie would reveal whether the comment has been deleted or not since editing it out was a technical issue.

Meanwhile, Pa Ranjith, the director of Superstar Rajinikanth’s yet to be released Kaala hit out against state BJP president Tamilisai  Soundararajan’s for demanding removal of the comments in the movie.

The director, who addressed reporters in Madurai on Friday, said, “The scenes in Mersal were only a reflection of people’s sufferings. I don’t think they should be deleted. In fact, the audience in theatres applauded these scenes.”

A few theatres in Chennai had reportedly ‘paused’ the film when these portions were set to be played. “We thought it was some technical issue. But only later we realised, the theatre had fast-forwarded the clip when the controversial dialogues were set to be played,” said Shyam Sundar, a Vijay fan.

Earlier in the day, Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan of the BJP strongly objected to what he termed as "untruths" regarding GST shown in the movie.

"The film producer should remove the untruths regarding GST from the film," he told reporters.

He said wrong information should not be spread through cinema and actors should not confuse people using the medium and try to derive political mileage.'

Senior BJP leader H Raja also slammed the references to GST in the movie in his Twitter handle and said it only exposed the lack of knowledge of economics.

State president Tamilisai Sounderrajan had told reporters in Chennai on Thursday that "Incorrect references have been made in

Mersal about GST ... celebrities should desist from registering wrong information among people."

Meanwhile, Vijay received support from Congress, CPM and VCK, which charged the BJP with coating the issue with religious colour and threatening the actor and the film’s producer.

Taking exception to Raja using the name ‘Joseph Vijay’, CPM state secretary G Ramakrishnan said the BJP leaders were bombarding freedom of expression.

Former TNCC president EVKS Elangovan flayed Tamilisai for asking about the income of Vijay and wondered if she was aware of the income of Hindi actors who had joined the BJP. 

Thirumavalavan said the Censor Board had already cleared the film and BJP leaders should protest against the board only.