The Press Club of India has issued a statement yesterday saying it supports the decision of the Entertainment Journalists’ Guild of India and the Mumbai Press Club to boycott actress Kangana Ranaut for refusing to apologise after lashing out at a PTI journalist for criticising her film Manikarnika, at a press conference recently.
Stating their support for the Mumbai Press Club’s inquiry on the incident, the Press Club of India said, “We are aghast, anguished and shocked at the incident involving an actress of Bollywood using uncivilised, uncultured, filthy and abusive language against media persons. We condemn it in the strongest possible words. This behaviour and hurling abuses towards journalists is unacceptable.”
Press club of India – delhi @PressClubOfI1 support #EntJournalistsGuild pic.twitter.com/Hz5JeKUB5P
— ENTERTAINMENT JOURNALIST GUILD (@GuildJournalist) July 12, 2019
Kangana had lashed out at PTI journalist Justin Rao on Monday, accusing him of bashing her film Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi in a review. She said it was not fair to criticise a film that was nationalist and make cheap statements about it. The journalist stood his stand, and the MC intervened, but was shouted at by another reporter who wanted Kangana and Justin to finish speaking. Finally, the mic was taken away from Justin, and another journalist asked a different question.
Kangana’s sister Rangoli Chandel later shared a video of her further attacking Justin saying he belonged to a section of the media who were pseudo-liberals, who threatened the nation’s integrity, equality and secularism by bashing her work.
Here’s a vidoe message from Kangana to all the media folks who have banned her, P.S she has got viral fever hence the heavy voice ?…(contd) pic.twitter.com/U1vkbgmGyq
— Rangoli Chandel (@Rangoli_A) July 11, 2019
The incident took place at a press meet for her upcoming film Judgemental Hai Kya, co-starring Rajkummar Rao, produced by Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Motion Pictures. Following the incident, the Entertainment Journalists’ Guild, demanded Ekta Kapoor to issue a statement condemning Kangana’s behaviour and announced their decision to not give Kangana any press coverage from now.
She responded with an apology and requested the media not to let this hamper their film. The entertainment guild thanked her for the statement, but refused to lift the ban on Kangana. No photoshoots and promotional events for the film have been covered this week.
#JudgeMentallHaiKya pic.twitter.com/24K9fUg5fb
— Ekta Kapoor (@ektaravikapoor) July 10, 2019
The film, directed by Prakash Kovelamudi, releases on July 26.
