Kolkata: Like Bengal, Tollywood is also facing the seismic political shifts. Former minister and Tollygunje candidate Aroop Biswas, who along with his brother Swarup, held sway over Tollywood was defeated by actor Papia Adhikary. Among the victorious candidates from the glam world, five – Rupa Ganguly, Rudranil Ghosh, Hiran Chattopadhyay, Agnimitra Paul and Sarbori Mukherjee – are from BJP while Nayana Bandyopadhyay is the lone Tollywood winning candidate from Trinamool.Bratya Basu, Raj Chakraborty, Indranil Sen, Soham Chakraborty, Arpita Ghosh, Sayantika Banerjee, Birbaha Hansda, Aditi Munshi, Lovely Maitra and Shrreya Pande – all Trinamool’s glam candidates – lost the battle. At the centre of the backlash is the Swarup Biswas controlled Federation which has been accused of imposing diktats, bans and political interference.Producer Himanshu Dhanuka said, “We fought this regime since 2016 — when no one was willing to speak, Eskay Movies did. Shoots were stalled even in London, bans were imposed, and letters to the then CM went unanswered. It wasn’t union activism — it was a political stranglehold dressed up as worker protection. Now let Tollywood breathe,” Dhanuka said. Director-producer Pijush Saha said, “People were scared to invest in Bengal. We have to end the tyranny of the Biswas brothers and their yes-men.”Distributor and exhibitor Satadeep Saha said from Tuesday onwards, producers should be free to hire as many technicians as required. “I was sent a notice for not screening ‘Korpur’, starring Trinamool’s Bratya Basu and Kunal Ghosh instead of ‘Dhurandhar 2′. Producers must have the right to decide which film to release and when. Every guild card issued by Swarup has to be reviewed,” he said.“Producers should be paid within four weeks of a screening at Nandan, not after a year. Nandan’s screening committee has approved films, only for the decision to be reversed by Nabanna. An impartial screening committee should be constituted,” he added. “Many exhibitors received calls with instructions to run certain films. Film industry has to become a priority,” said Priya’s owner Arijit Dutta.
