Karni Sena, the fringe outfit that held Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat hostage around the time of its release in 2018, are back with a new round of ‘protests’. It’s Akshay Kumar’s Prithviraj Chauhan that is at the receiving end of the group’s ire. What were they protesting? The misrepresentation of ‘facts’. Karni Sena president Mahipal Singh Makrana and members stormed into the film’s sets near Jaipur, according to this News18 report. At the site, Makrana met with the director Chandraprakash Dwivedi, and asked him to stop shooting.
Dwivedi assured Makrana and his fellow Karni Sena members that no ‘facts’ were being tampered with during the making of the film. However, Makrana insisted that the director give a written assurance of the same. Speaking to the media, Makrana mentioned his main grouse, “We held discussions with the director, Chandra Prakash, regarding the film’s script today. We told him that no tampering with historic facts will be tolerated. Prithviraj Chauhan should not be portrayed as a lover in the film. The director has assured us that there is no such thing in the movie but we want a written assurance.”
Prithviraj Chauhan, starring Akshay Kumar and Manushi Chhillar in the lead roles, is based on the Rajput king of the same name. Known for taking up Muhammad of Ghor (played by Sanjay Dutt), one can expect the film to be along the lines of Kumar’s Kesari and Dutt’s Panipat, where he played Afghan ruler, Ahmad Shah Abdali.
Karni Sena shot into national consciousness, when a mob representing the outfit, vandalised the sets of Padmaavat and assaulted director Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The outfit even threatened Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone with physical harm over rumours that the film was going to show a ‘dream sequence’ depicting romance between Padmavati (a fictitious queen) and Alauddin Khilji. The rumour turned out to be false. But Karni Sena has understandably missed the limelight for over two years, and credit to them for jumping on the first opportunity that Bollywood has presented them with.
