Not Many Takers In Bollywood for Govt’s ‘CAA Discussion’ Invite

The government’s attempt to have a discussion on CAA with Bollywood turned out to be a flop show.

The government’s much talked about “interactive meeting” with members of the Hindi film industry on Sunday, 5 January, to discuss the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) can be best described as a flop show. Though according to reports, several high profile members from the industry including Karan Johar, Farhan Akhtar, Kabir Khan and Siddharth Roy Kapur were invited for the discussion, none of them turned up, which also explains why no new “selfie with Bollywood” has surfaced yet.

This is the invitation that was sent to out to members of the film industry on behalf of Minister of Railways and Commerce, Piyush Goyal and National Vice President of BJP, Baijayant Jay Panda.

According to social media and reports from a few journalists who were present at the Grand Hyatt on Sunday night, those who turned up for the meeting from Bollywood included:

• Prasoon Joshi (Lyricist, Writer, Chairperson CBFC)
• Kailash Kher (Singer)
• Kunal Kohli (Filmmaker)
• Abhishek Kapoor (Filmmaker)
• Anu Malik (Music Director)
• Urvashi Rautela (Actor)
• Bhushan Kumar (Producer)
• Anil Sharma (Filmmaker)
• Shaan (Singer)
• Prahlad Kakkar (Ad filmmaker)
• Ritesh Sidhwani (Producer)
• Ranvir Shorey (Actor)
• Rahul Rawail (Filmmaker)

Who all from #Bollywood will attend the ‘interactive meeting’ called by #piyushgoyal & #jaypanda today in Mumbai?
Lot of names floating around with the #hashtag #BollywoodWakeUp. Few hours to go so let’s not speculate. I’ll get you each & every name with a pic as they walk in 👀

— Rohit Khilnani (@rohitkhilnani) January 5, 2020

With none of the Hindi film industry’s big players showing up, except the head of T-series, Bhushan Kumar and a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance by Ritesh Sidhwani of Excel Entertainment, the government’s attempt to gather a show of strength from Bollywood appears to have been a damp squib.

According to sources, there was an attempt by two A-list actors to gather together a few of Bollywood’s powerful names to attend the meeting, however, no one seemed to have agreed to show up. When I asked a celebrated filmmaker, who was reportedly invited to the gathering, as to why he didn’t go for it, he responded saying, “I don’t look good in selfies :-)”.

Well, as we said are no selfies on social media from the “discussion on myths and realities pertaining to the CAA” held on Sunday with Bollywood yet.