Reporter’s diary: When Thalaivar pulled a punch with Darbar protesters

The producers of the movie have meekly surrendered and removed a few scenes from the movie after AMMK objected to some scenes. Even functionaries of the political party were surprised by the haste with which the producers removed the ‘scene’ without a semblance of resistance. The buzz in political circles was that the action hero was probably the softest target to hit for political one-upmanship. Pertinently, the same director, AR Murugadoss, had withstood political pressure when objection was raised to the portrayal of freebies in Vijay starrer Sarkar in late 2018. However, neither Vijay nor Murugadoss had blinked then. Rajini’s peer Kamal Haasan, another CM aspirant, had even put up a brave face for a while and offered to move out of the country when his Vishwaroopam-I faced political resistance during the heydays of powerful chief minister J Jayalalithaa. Vijay, in fact, and his producers had faced political backlash during the release of most of his movies in recent years. However, none had succumbed as easily as the Darbar team, which has disappointed Rajini fans who ended up seeing their ‘Thalaivar’ pulling a punch instead of packing one.