Web-series on Narendra Modi is online again after the elections

Modi: Journey Of A Common Man, a web-series on prime minister Narendra Modi, is live again, a month after the Election Commission of India banned its streaming in favour of a level-playing field during the Lok Sabha elections.

Directed by Umesh Shukla of OMG: Oh My God (2012) fame, the web-series was launched just days ahead of the polls, and was playing on though the Election Commission had stopped the release of Hindi biopic PM Narendra Modi (2019) on 11 April, a day before the seven-phase polls began.

Five episodes, which were launched earlier, were made available again on OTT platform Eros Now on Tuesday, 21 May. The remaining five are yet to be released.

"Our plan is to release episodes 6 and 7 on Thursday 23 May in five different languages — Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Gujarati. The remaining episodes of the 10-part original series will be streamed shortly," Ridhima Lulla, chief content officer of the Eros group, told the IANS news agency.

"Our attempt through this series is to tell the story of Narendra Modi's struggle, willpower, vision and victory. His journey is truly inspiring," Lulla added.

Shukla, director of the web-series, had earlier said the release of the show was not planned to coincide with the elections.

"I was working on it for almost a year. It could have come out a month earlier as well, but it got delayed owing to some technical glitches... My web-series is not about politics. It is more about a character and his journey," the filmmaker had told IANS.

The trajectory of the web-series and the film PM Narendra Modi is similar as they trace Modi's journey from his humble beginnings to becoming the prime minister.

Written by Mihir Bhuta and Radhika Anand and based on Kishor Makwana's book Modi: Common Man's PM, the show stars Faisal Khan, Ashish Sharma and Mahesh Thakur depicting different phases of Modi's life.

Meanwhile, the BJP-sponsored channel NaMo TV went off the air on 17 May soon after the conclusion of campaigning across the country. It had begun telecast on 31 March, BJP sources said.

"The channel was brought as a medium of election campaign of BJP. As the campaign ended, there was no need for it. So it went off air on 17 May after the campaign concluded," a BJP leader said on condition of anonymity.