Pahlaj Nihalani, after being forced to leave the post of CBFC chief, has opened up about Smriti Irani and the Ministry like never before!

It has been a few days that Pahlaj Nihalani has left the post of the CBFC chief. And now he has finally spoken his heart out. In an interview with Bharati Pradhan for Lehren TV, Nihalani has claimed that he was thrown out of his post due to not following the orders of Smriti Irani and the Ministry.

He said, “At the I&B Ministry, I was their target number 1. It all started when I didn’t clear Madhur Bhandarkar’s Indu Sarkar. She gave me a call asking why I hadn’t done so. I said, I was following guidelines and now the film is already with the Tribunal. And I told her if she wants she can get it cleared from the Tribunal. I wasn’t massaging her ego and it was only a matter of time before I was thrown out.”

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However, he said that he thinks it has got nothing to do with Ekta Kapoor.

Talking about the Udta Punjab controversy, he said, “There was pressure from every side to not clear the film. I cannot tell you how much pressure I was under. Despite that, I cleared the film albeit with cuts.”

He even claimed that the ministry didn’t want Salman Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan to be released. He said, “There was a letter from the Home Ministry to not clear Kabir Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan as it was releasing on Eid and they feared that it could lead to communal problems. I knew the story. It wasn’t what they feared. There was miscommunication. I stood by the makers. Yet I was made out to be the villain. Such is the industry.”

Nihalani even went on to call Kabir Khan ‘useless’ and Anurag Kashyap a ‘publicity hound’!