Prakash Jha gifting Raajneeti DVDs to BJP MLAs

For all those 70 MLAs and Vasundhara Raje who got themselves into serious trouble for watching a pirated DVD of Prakash Jha"s Raajneeti in a luxury hotel in Rajasthan on Tuesday, Jha has a special gift coming up. He will gift a legitimate DVD of the film to each of the MLAs when the DVD it is officially released in two weeks" time.

“I hope that they would finally see the difference between the grainy bootleg version of the film that they allegedly saw in Jaipur and a legally manufactured DVD of Raajneeti." Says Jha, a tad caustically.

However the sizzling love-making scene between Arjun Rampal and Shruti Seth would be deleted from the DVD, since Prakash doesn"t want our politicians to get 'unnecessarily worked-up when there"s so much to be done in building the nation.' On Tuesday, June 15, over 70 MLAs of the BJP allegedly watched the film on a spurious DVD, projected on a large screen.

Says the director, “Apparently these MLAs couldn"t tell the difference between a pirated DVD and a legitimate one. It"s a pity that a politician of Vasundhara Raje"s stature couldn"t tell the difference between being on the right and wrong side of the law."

Jha says, he would"ve happily arranged a special legitimate screening of Raajneeti for the MLAs. Apparently a FIR has been filed against the MLAs. But Prakash doesn"t believe the law can be effective in case of viewing a pirated DVD. “At the most the police will visit the hotel where the MLAs allegedly viewed it. There will be no evidence of their wrongdoing. The matter will end there."

But the director known for his socio-political exposes won"t allow the matter to die down. Prakash Jha has more constructive plans for exposing the nexus between piracy and politics. In a political thriller that he plans, he intends to incorporate a sequence showing the politicians enjoying the clandestine screening of a film. To add to the irony, the film that these politicians would be watching will be Raajneeti.

Says our desi Costa Gavras, “It is very important for politicians to set the right example, specially the ones who are taken seriously like Mrs Vasundhara Raje. And we need to create an awareness of political responsibility through cinema."