Actress Debolina Dutta, who participated in the ‘Justice for RG Kar’ movement, alleged that the ‘boycott’ has affected her career. “I am in a thick soup right now and my earnings have plummeted. I would switch careers rather than be in an industry that is controlled politically,” she said.
Dutta added that she lost six shows at the last moment owing to pressure from the ruling party. “I have proof. Show organisers have messaged me claiming that they are unable to include me due to political pressure. This is the culture of Hitler. Democracy and West Bengal have become oxymoron terms. A place where art and artists are controlled, such a place is surely hurtling towards downfall,” she said.
Dutta also criticised actor-turned-minister Bratya Basu for supporting Ghosh. But welcomed the statement of Abhishek Banerjee wherein he said the “boycott call” was not the party’s stand.
Another prominent Kolkata-based actor Chaiti Ghoshal alleged that the ruling party had prepared a list of celebrities considered ‘persona non grata’ before the Durga Puja for having participated in the RG Kar movement. “I came to know that TMC leaders had asked Puja organisers to not invite us for Puja inaugurations. My name was on that list and now again on the new list,” Ghoshal remarked.
She said she never took any help from even the previous dispensation during its 34-year-long rule, and added that “people who think they need to cast me will do so… I want to perform as an artist and not be close to a ruling party.”
Ghoshal further said that she knew there would be repercussions for hitting the streets over the RG Kar issue. “If they say ‘We will do injustice to your child but you cannot raise your voice or we will stop you from working’, well then ‘I don’t need your work’,” she added.
Meanwhile, The Indian Express contacted singer Lagnajita Chakraborty, who was recently replaced in a TMC-organised winter carnival. She was also a prominent figure in the protests that broke out over the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at the state-run RG Kar Hospital and Medical College in Kolkata. The singer, though, declined to comment on the latest controversy.