Vidya Balan planned to adapt Sagarika Ghose’s 2017 book about former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for a web series before Kangana Ranaut.
On Friday, Kangana Ranaut announced on her X handle that she was heartbroken that Emergency, her first solo project, wouldn’t be available on the day as the Central Board of Film Certification has not yet approved it. According to the actor-filmmaker, who portrays former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in the period political thriller based on the 1975 Emergency, certain sections of the movie have been opposed by the Sikh community.
Kangana isn’t the only one
In 2018, Vidya Balan acquired the rights to Sagarika Ghose’s 2017 book Indira: India’s Most Powerful Prime Minister, much before Kangana began work on Emergency. She told us it had been her long-cherished dream to play Indira Gandhi on film. Under his banner, Roy Kapur Films, her husband, Siddharth Roy Kapur, was supposed to produce the film.
Vidya revealed a couple of details about the project in an interview with Firstpost in 2019. It was supposed to be a web series rather than a movie, directed by Ritesh Batra of The Lunchbox fame. Indira Gandhi’s web series is taking more time than I’d like. They’re rewriting it for web use and will get back to me soon with the final version. The web is a different ballgame, so it takes longer,” she said.
Several people offered me the role five years ago, but I told them that as long as you don’t get the permissions, I can’t do the film. But it’s much easier in web,” Vidya explained.
Thalaivi was also offered to Vidya
She explained in the same interview that she turned down the role of former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa in AL Vijay’s biopic Thalaivi. As she was already gearing up to play Indira Gandhi, she didn’t want to play two political figures of the same age too close to each other.
It is co-produced by Zee Studios and Kangana’s Manikarnika Films that Kangana plays both Jayalalithaa and Indira Gandhi in Thalaivi (2021) and Emergency, respectively.