Darbar Controversy: Lyca Productions Removes Alleged Reference to AIADMK’s Sasikala From Rajinikanth’s Film

After the release of Rajinikanth's Darbar, a section of people were upset over dialogue in the film allegedly referring to AIADMK leader VK Sasikala. Now, the makers have decided to chop that scene.

Director AR Murugadoss seems to have his own way of adding political references in the films. After having a commentary on freebies issued by the government in his last film Sarkar, the director has come under the fire for dialogue in Darbar that a part of the audience believed referred to jailed AIADMK leader Sasikala.

Lyca Productions, that produces Murugadoss’ latest film Darbar, featuring Rajinikanth, made an official announcement regarding the controversial dialogue that has hurt the sentiments of a section of the audience, especially the AIADMK supporters. Through their official Twitter handle, Lyca Productions announced that the particular scene has been removed from the final print of Darbar even though the makers didn’t intend to ‘offend anyone’ with it.

The scene showed a government official mentioning the irregularities in prison and how a prisoner in South India was allowed to go out of the prison illegally for sometime. As per those who slammed the makers for the scene, it referred to AIADMK leader VK Sasikala who’s currently serving the jail term in a money laundering case. Sasikala was accused of illegally going out of the Bengaluru central jail in civilian clothes for a shopping spree.

The tweet made by Lyca Productions in the matter read, “In our “Darbar” film, particular words and dialogues having references to prisoners or inmates going out of jail or prison during their imprisonment term. It was only included with the intention of providing entertainment to the audience and is not intended to refer to any specific individual or to offend anyone. However, since some of those particular words seemed to have hurt some people, we have hereby decided to remove the same from the film.” (sic)

#DARBAR @rajinikanth @ARMurugadoss #Nayanthara @anirudhofficial @santoshsivan @sreekar_prasad #Santhanam @SunielVShetty #DarbarThiruvizha #DarbarRunningSuccessfully 💥🔥 pic.twitter.com/zj6Mcwsxu3

— Lyca Productions (@LycaProductions) January 10, 2020

Meanwhile, after creating a huge buzz, Darbar stormed the Box Office upon its release on January 9. The film is expected to break existing Box Office records for a Rajinikanth starrer and set the new ones in the coming days.