Abki baar, censorship sarkar: Surjewala's dig at Modi government

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Randeep Surjewala on Friday accused the BJP government at the Centre of being a "censorship sarkar," after a comedy show allegedly asked a participant to not poke fun at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi.

"Abki Baar,'Censorship' Sarkar! BJP will decide What u see, eat, wear; Who u see, love or marry! Rein in thoughts too?," tweeted Surjewala, with a link to an article about stand-up comic Shyam Rangeela's allegedly censored act on a TV show.



Surjewala's comment was a play on the PM's 'Abki baar, Modi sarkar' slogan from the 2014 general elections.

According to news agency PTI, Rangeela, who won fame for his mimicry of political leaders on social media, was asked to prepare fresh material in a short time as the channel did not want to offend anyone.

"Before they called me to perform on the show, they knew I specialised in mimicking politicians like Modi ji and Rahul Gandhi. Intially, they said not to mimic Modi but were okay with poking fun at Rahul," PTI quoted him as saying.

But after a month of shooting, Rangeela claims he was asked to shoot with new jokes as those on Modi and Rahul would not be aired.

"Later, they said I can't mimic either of them. They asked me to prepare a new skit in five days - without mimicking Modi-Rahul. I told them I would not be able to put up a fresh stand-up in such a short time. But I did prepare something and did the shoot. It was not impressive enough as it led to my elimination from the show," he said.

(With inputs from PTI)