Critically acclaimed filmmaker Ketan Mehta stated that he sent a legal notice to actress Kangana Ranaut for conniving and scheming with producer Kamal Jain and other cast and crew in order to hijack “Rani of Jhansi – The Warrior Queen”, which is by far his most ambitious film project yet.
According to Mehta, he had approached Kangana in order to play the role of Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi in his film. The actress publicly committed herself to do the project with him, but she later announced another film titled “Manikarnika – the Queen of Jhansi” with another polific producer and director. When the IANS team contacted Mehta, he said: “Yes it is true. We have sent a notice to Kangana because I think there is an attempt of hijacking a film.” They also shared the script, certain research materials and a lot of brainstorm discussions had taken place. After this, they got news that she is doing a movie with another director and producer, that too based on the same film.
Ketan Mehta also said that he finds this completely unethical. A prolific and well known maker of films like “Mirch Masala”, “Maya Memsaab”, “Mangal Pandey – The Rising” and “Manjhi – The Mountain Man” said that his lawyer would take up the matter with the actress. After devoting 10 years of their life in this project the filmmaker was really anxious to find out why she did that in the first place. Later during the week, Kanagana herself said that she is playing the lead role in “Manikarnika – The Queen Of Jhansi”, which is slated to release in April 2018, and directed by Krish. The news of Mehta’s whole notice came soon after well-known writer Apurva Asrani expressed grave dissatisfaction over how Kangana took additional credit for the story in an upcoming film “Simran”.