Lok Sabha Election 2019: Anand Patwardhan, Vetrimaaran among artists to issue appeal against voting for BJP

Over 100 filmmakers from across the country have come together and issued a statement urging people to not vote for the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) in the upcoming Lok Sabha election. Many well known figures from the Indian film industry, from National Award-winning documentary maker Anand Patwardhan,  _Vada Chennai_ director Vetrimaaran to International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) director and editor Bina Kaul, as well as independent filmmakers like Gurvinder Singh, Devashish Makhija and Sanal Kumar Sasidharan are among the signatories. [caption id=“attachment_5163921” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Anand Patwardhan. Image via Twitter[/caption] “Though culturally vivid and geographically diverse, we have always stayed united… It has indeed been a great feeling to be a citizen of this wonderful country,” reads the statement uploaded on  www.artistuniteindia.com. They have enlisted their main concerns for voting against the BJP, which include polarisation on the basis of religion, marginalising farmers, Dalits and Muslims, “propagating unscientific and irrational beliefs”, censorship, flaws in economic policies, among others. The statement says that patriotism is BJP’s ’trump card’ and any individual or institution that challenges them is called ‘anti-national.’ It points out that the current government has not only failed to lived upto their election promises, they have also used cow lynching and vigilantism as a means to cause a communal divide in the country. It adds that the BJP has romanticised and exploited the armed forces, even risking the nation’s safety by engaging in war.