BOMBAY TIMES (April 12, 2019)

After 600 theatre artistes (including names like Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma, Anurag Kashyap, Vinay Pathak and Amol Palekar) joined over 100 filmmakers (including Anand Patwardhan, Sanal Kumar Sasidharan, Vetri Maaran and Pa Ranjith) and 200 writers (such as Arundhati Roy, Girish Karnad and Amitav Ghosh) to issue statements urging people to “vote hatred out of power”, 907 artistes initiated a counter campaign on Wednesday.

The 600 theatre artistes had appealed to people to “Vote against the BJP and its allies” under the collective Artist Unite India. Now, 907 artistes, filmmakers, actors and writers under the Nation First Collective, have lent their name to a statement urging people “to cast their vote and exercise their right to elect the new government without any pressure and prejudice.”

The artistes are confident that “the continuance of Govt. led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the need of the hour.” Their statement reads: “We believe that during the last five years, India has seen a government that has delivered corruption-free good governance and development oriented administration. During this period, globally India has acquired greater respect. It is our firm conviction that the continuance of government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the need of the hour.”

The statement also reminds voters to consider the nation’s security and states that “when challenges like terrorism are before all of us, we need a “Majboot Sarkar” and not a “Mazboor Sarkar” and hence we need the present Govt. to continue.”

Filmmaker Akashaditya Lama, Convenor of the Nation First Collective, tells us, “We are a group of over 100 artistes and filmmakers. We decided to sign this statement and approach more people from the industry after we saw people telling others not to vote for Modi. That, I feel is against the Constitution. You can’t tell me who to vote for and who not to.” When asked wasn’t their statement doing the same, Lama responded, “No, I am only saying I am voting for Modi and BJP and so are these people. That’s all!” The group claims that they didn’t reach out to many known supporters since they are contesting the elections on BJP tickets and that their numbers are now up to 1300 with names like Paresh Rawal and lyricist Sameer also joining the fray.

Prominent names in the list include Vivek Oberoi, Shankar Mahadevan, Koena Mitra, Alok Nath, Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Pratibha Prahlad, Anuradha Paudwal, Gajendra Chauhan, Mukesh Khanna and Raju Srivastav.