'Final Solution' maker, Anupam Kher in social media row

NEW DELHI: Filmmaker Rakesh Sharma and actor Anupam Kher have been engaged in a furious spat on social media over the former's award-winning, controversial documentary, "The Final Solution".
Sharma has alleged in a Facebook note that Kher lied in a recent television appearance about having cleared his film in 2004 as then censor board chief. The film was on the 2002 Gujarat riots which happened under the watch of BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.Kher's wife Kirron Kher is a BJP Lok Sabha candidate from Chandigarh.
In a series of tweets in the small hours of Sunday morning, Kher wrote, “People like Rakesh Sharma have their own agendas. But this time he stands exposed. Let him produce d proof tat I did’t pass his documentary. Pseudo Seculars r cowards. They rely on lies. They are frightened people who hide behind agendas. God save our country from such people.” He reiterated his stand that he along with other members of the censor board were behind clearing the film, and that Sharma had thanked him for it. Sharma had exhorted Kher to respond to his allegations on Twitter from his handle @rakeshfilm. Kher’s response has come after a Facebook post dated April 18, where Sharma has taken umbrage at Kher’s assertion that he was thankful to him.
“On CNN IBN he says that I sent him an ‘sms saying I want to touch your feet for your magnanimity’. Anupam Kher either has verbal diarrhoea or the Alzheimer’s or both. Such a remark also belies his feudal mindset, where he perhaps saw himself as the King of the Censor Board and expected his subjects to fall at his feet ... On the same show, he says he cleared the film during the BJP's tenure. A blatant lie. The special committee headed by well-known film-maker Shyam Benegal met on Oct 7, 2004. BJP/ NDA had lost the polls; UPA had been in power for 4-5 months,” says Sharma, buttressing his claims with old news reports on the subject. He goes on to write about the alleged harassment he faced from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) even as it went on to win at international film festivals.
“Factually speaking, Mr Kher and his coterie of partisan officers first harassed me, while refusing to schedule the film for a CBFC panel screening. When they finally did so, it was done with utter malintent, hurrying the ban on the film. Mr Kher is believed to have personally called up the Police Commissioner, Bangalore to prevent a public screening of my film as the curtain raiser to the Films for Freedom Festival in Bangalore on July 29, 2004, a day before the CBFC ‘banned’ the film,” writes Sharma.