Employ desi item girls in your movies, says MNS to Bollywood

Spicezee Bureau

Mumbai: The woes of Bollywood fraternity never seem to end, all thanks to the extremist right wing and law defying political party, the Mumbai Navnirman Sena (MNS) which runs under the leadership of Raj Thakreay. The latest notice that they have issued to Bollywood states that the industry people should refrain using foreign artists as item girls and should instead use desi item girls in their movies. Trade people however feel that the MNS should leave Bollywood the way it is and have strongly opposed their newest diktat. Only recently film producer, Ritesh Sidhwani, was involved in an uproar with the party workers, when some MNS allegedly tried to extort money from him, in defense of which MNS cine-workers’ union president Shalini Thackerays said, “They were falsely implicating our boys. They all belong to well-to-do families and had gone to the studio to check if the 136 foreigners working there had proper permits”. As far as dance sequences were concerned, she said foreigners would not be allowed to feature as item girls or those dancing in the background. ‘‘Why can’t our Indian actors dance with locals? We will insist that only local junior artist should be employed,’’ she stated. Shalini further added that MNS was concerned about the influx of foreigners in the film industry in view of the recent terror threats. ‘‘In Sunday’s incident, several Afghan and Iran nationals were found working on the set. We need to keep a check on their backgrounds,’’ she said. In the wake of cinema going global, the age old adage of ‘All the world’s a stage’ seems to be losing it meaning and it becoming more like ‘As MNS likes it’.