PM Narendra Modi: SC directs Election Commission to watch film, review stay and file report by 22 April

The Supreme Court has directed Election Commission to watch PM Narendra Modi and file a report stating its decision by Friday, 22 April during the hearing of a plea challenging the stay on the film today, reports The Quint. [caption id=“attachment_6379651” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] A poster of PM Narendra Modi. Twitter[/caption]

On 12 April, the makers of the Narendra Modi biopic moved the Supreme Court against EC’s ban on the biopic till the end of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The filmmakers will screen the Vivek Oberoi-starrer before the EC. The election watchdog had previously ruled that no biopics can be released during elections as the political content in such movies “threaten level playing field”. The  decision to stall  PM Narendra Modi came on 10 April, a day after the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) granted the the film a  ‘U’ certificate . The biopic was initially scheduled for release on 5 April. PM Narendra Modi, directed by Mary Kom maker Omung Kumar, courted controversy since the release of its trailer, with various political parties saying that releasing it before the general election would be a violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The film stars Rajendra Gupta as Modi’s father,  Manoj Joshi  as Amit Shah,  Prashant Narayanan  as a fictitious business tycoon named Aditya Reddy, Zarina Wahab as Modi’s mother and Barkha Bisht Sengupta as Modi’s wife. Boman Irani and Yatin Karyekar also feature in prominent roles.