Congress has not filed complaint against Sacred Games, clarifies spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi

Filmmakers Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane’s web-series Sacred Games was launched on Netflix on 6 July. The series revolves around two principal characters, Ganesh Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), a crime lord, and a righteous police officer Sartaj Singh (Saif Ali Khan).

While the web-series is a work of fiction, it is based on Indian-American author Vikram Chandra’s book of the same name. Both the book and the web-series use certain critical real-life events that occurred in India from the 1970s to the 1990s.

One of the historical events referred to in the web-series is the assassination of former prime minister and Congress leader Rajiv Gandhi. Gandhi was killed in a terrorist attack in Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, in Tamil Nadu on 21 May 1991.

In the web-series, following the assassination, Siddiqui’s Ganesh Gaitonde comments on the incident and is critical of the former prime minister. He doesn’t hesitate to label the entire Gandhi family 'thieves'.

A few reports on the private messaging app, WhatsApp, indicated that some Congress members had filed a complaint against the show.

We spoke to Priyanka Chaturvedi, a spokesperson of the Indian National Congress, to confirm the development. Chaturvedi clearly stated that the party has no objections to the web-series.

“This is not the Congress party’s stance," Chaturvedi said. "If we have any stance, then we will take it from the national platform, or from any Mumbai or any pradesh [state] committee. [However], if it is not coming [from there], then it is definitely not the Congress party’s stance. In fact, I am myself watching Sacred Games.”