Earlier, the senior Congress leader accused the makers of indulging in "gross exaggeration" and "distortion" of the state's reality. The description of Sudipto Sen's The Kerala Story, which has been facing backlash for its factual inaccuracies, has been altered after it stirred a political storm.
The description of its teaser uploaded on YouTube in November claimed that the film was about “heartbreaking and gut-wrenching stories of 32,000 females in Kerala”. However, a new trailer, uploaded by production banner Sunshine Pictures on YouTube, describes the film as, "The Kerala Story is a compilation of the true stories of three young girls from different parts of Kerala."
This comes as the movie makers have been caught up in a controversy over the numbers quoted in the film.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, on Tuesday, reacted to the change and said, "The plot thickens. The filmmakers have updated the movie's description on YouTube and changed '32,000 women' to '3 women'. Earlier, they said the movie is about the "heartbreaking and gut-wrenching stories of 32,000 females in Kerala". Now it says: "The Kerala Story is a compilation of the true stories of three young girls from different parts of Kerala". I rest my case."
Earlier, the senior Congress leader accused the makers of indulging in "gross exaggeration" and "distortion" of the state's reality.
Tharoor's assertion came in response to those accusing him of double standards over his criticism of the film, referring to his 2021 tweet in which he had said that he had been approached by three Kerala mothers whose daughters were stuck in Afghanistan having been taken there by their misguided husbands.
"Yes, I was approached then by three Kerala mothers and was aware of a fourth, and I was open about my concerns about their daughters' radicalisation. But four cases are a far cry from the 32,000 that the film-makers are alleging," he stated.
In another tweet, the Congress MP from Kerala's capital Thiruvananthapuram said that the film is a misrepresentation of the state.
"Let me stress, I am not calling for a ban on the film. Freedom of expression does not cease to be valuable just because it can be misused. But Keralites have every right to say loud & clear that this is a misrepresentation of our reality," he tweeted.
The Kerala Story, starring Adah Sharma, is set to be released in cinemas on May 5. Written and directed by Sudipto Sen, the film is portrayed as "unearthing" the events behind "approximately 32,000 women" allegedly going missing from Kerala.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday had slammed the makers of the film, saying they were taking up the Sangh Parivar propaganda of projecting the state as a centre of religious extremism by raising the issue of 'love jihad' -- a concept rejected by the courts.