Politics, ugly spats dominate Bollywood Town's controversy calendar

Bollywood is never far away from controversies and 2016 saw some major headline grabbers, be it the political arm-twisting of Karan Johar, censor board's continuous meddling or Hrithik Roshan and Kangana Ranaut's ugly public spat.

Little did Johar know that a cameo by Pakistani actor Fawad Khan will turn into such a major issue and almost derail his ambitious project "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil".

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena threatened to stall the film's release to capitalise on anti-Pakistan sentiments in the wake of the Uri attack. Johar had to release a video, promising he will not cast any Pakistani actors in future.
 

A controversial negotiation was brokered between the producers and Raj Thackeray by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to allow the film to release with conditions that the producers will not cast Pakistani actors in future and will pay Rs 5 crore to the army fund. Army, however, declined to take the money.

Johar was in the middle of another controversy when Ajay Devgn, whose movie "Shivaay" was clashing at the box office with "Ae Dil...", released a voice recording of self-proclaimed critic Kamaal R Khan on Twitter, where he claimed that he was allegedly bribed by Johar to praise the Ranbir Kapoor-Anushka Sharma-Aishwarya Rai starrer.

Devgn's wife Kajol, who has starred in several of Johar's films, also came out in support of her husband, raising doubts about the status of her friendship with the director.

Censor board has been in news since Pahlaj Nihalani took over as its chief, but things came to a boiling point with Abhishek Chaubey's drug-themed drama "Udta Punjab".

The certification body asked for multiple cuts, including one that suggested deleting the name 'Punjab' whenever it appeared in the film.

The producers were livid with the demands and decided to go public with their grievances. They took up the matter in court, which released the film with just one cut.

Nihalani did not help the matter by coming up with controversial statements alleging that the makers took money from Aam Aadmi Party, inviting Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to jump in.

Anurag Kashyap, one of the producers, however, avoided the political slug-fest by appealing the parties to stay away from their fight.

Kashyap likened the ban on his film to living like in North Korea, saying any person or party opposing it, was guilty of promoting drugs.

But no publicity is bad publicity in Bollywood and both the films managed to do well at the box office.

Bollywood was forced to take sides when Hrithik and Kangana decided to go public with their yet-unresolved fight, which started when the actress talked about one of her "silly exes" in an interview.

Hrithik did not like the comment and took to Twitter to clarify that he never dated the actress only to continue the spat by sending her a legal notice, demanding an apology.

Kangana, not one to accept defeat, slapped her former co-star with a counter-notice where she claimed that they had a relationship and Hrithik was merely trying to cover it up.

What ensued was a media trial with both sides releasing multiple statements, private email conversations and photographs to prove their point. They continue to engage in verbal dual from time to time.

Kashyap was again in news when he decided to fight another industry battle on behalf of fellow producer and friend Johar for the release of latter's ADHM, and tweeted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about his visit to Pakistan last year.

He later clarified that he did not question the prime minister but merely pointed out the "fairness of judgement in the situation".

But, the filmmaker was criticised for making public a woman journalist's phone number in one of his rants.

Salman Khan has a way of landing himself into trouble and he managed to do that this year as well. The actor suffered a foot-in-the-mouth moment when he likened his rigorous training for wrestling drama "Sultan" to feeling like being raped.

The actor was slammed for the remark, and even his father, Salim Khan, who occasionally tweets in support of his son, criticised Salman's poor choice of words.

Salman again faced backlash when he supported Pakistani actors working in Bollywood, saying they were artistes, not terrorists, which did not go down well with ultra-nationalists.

His name was again dragged when Arijit Singh in a controversial Facebook post claimed that the actor had removed his version of the song 'Jag Ghumeya' from "Sultan", because he was angry with the singer over his comments during an award function.

Salman, however, declined to get drawn into the argument and said the song had multiple versions and he had no say in the matter.

Shah Rukh Khan sparked controversy this year when he met with Raj Thackeray in connection with his upcoming film "Raees" that features King Khan opposite Pakistani actress Mahira Khan.

Panama Papers leaks created a major political row but it also threw up names like Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. Both the stars, however, denied the charges.

The outspoken Naseeruddin Shah faced the ire of Rajesh Khanna's fans as well as his daughter Twinkle Khanna, after he criticised 'kaka' for being a "poor actor", for which Shah later apologised.