No objection to release of 'Udta Punjab': SAD

With the Bombay High Court clearing the decks for the release of 'Udta Punjab', the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today said it has no objection to the release of the film, adding that the people will decide the fate of the Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt starrer.
"The state government has no intention of stopping the release of the film," Punjab Education Minister and SAD secretary and spokesman Daljeet Singh Cheema said here today.
"It is the people who will decide whether to see it (the film) or not," Cheema said while asserting that the Akali government was never opposed to freedom of expression.

He was asked to comment on the court verdict.
The Bombay High Court today cleared the decks for the release of 'Udta Punjab' whose makers had locked horns with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) over multiple cuts demanded by the board.
The High Court ordered the makers to delete a scene where Shahid Kapoor was seen urinating on the audience at a rock concert and display a revised disclaimer.

Cheema said it was up to the censor board now whether to allow the release of the film or challenge the verdict.
"We have not seen the film. Whatever the court has done is right. It is up to the censor board what decision it takes. We, as government, are nowhere in the picture," he said.

Alleging AAP's "hand" in the making of 'Udta Punjab', SAD had earlier asked the party's convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to accept AAP's role in the making of the film as "his own tweets to welcome the film's co-producer Sameer Nair had exposed the truth that the producer was an 'active member' of the Aam Aadmi Party".
Meanwhile, reacting to Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh's statement that he would eradicate the drug problem in the state within a month of Congress forming the government in the next Assembly elections in 2017, Cheema said, "It means, he knows there is no drug problem in the state. When Amarinder stops raking up the drug issue, the problem will end. Till elections, both Amarinder and Kejriwal will continue to raise this issue.