Kolkata: A Bengali film directed by a state government official and featuring two actors who had contested the Bengal assembly elections on BJP tickets has run into trouble with the censor board over the use of the words “Sitey” and “Honu” to denote Sita and Hanuman in a brief enactment of an episode from Ramayan.

At a hearing on Monday, the regional office of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) asked the director of Aasharey Goppo to make four modifications, including muting two words that a member of the advisory panel said were uttered in “derogatory” context. The CBFC cited guideline 2 (XII) that requires the panel to “ensure that visuals or words contemptuous of racial, religious or other groups are not presented”.

“When we watched this scene, we found it extremely disrespectful towards the Hindu goddess Sita and Lord Hanuman. As responsible advisory board members, we have acted keeping in mind the Cinematograph Act,” panel member Partha Sarathi Chowdhury said.

The recommended cuts led director Arindam Chakraborty to term the CBFC’s intervention “farcicial”. Actor Rudranil Ghosh, who had unsuccessfully contested the Bhowanipore assembly seat as a BJP candidate against Trinamool’s Sovandeb Chatterjee last year, said “those at the CBFC always impose their personal thoughts” while certifying a film.

Rudranil’s co-actor Payel Sarkar, too, was a losing BJP candidate in the polls last year. Aasharey Goppo is a comedy that revolves around a filmmaker, played by Abir Chatterjee, who wants to make good cinema but is forced by producers to churn out formulaic fare.

“I pleaded with them to allow the word Hanuman instead of ‘Honu’. I asked them if my dialogue was distorting the Ramayan. I was told I can’t keep the word,” director Chakraborty said.