STR’s mother Usha lashes out at TFPC
Supreme body of Tamil cinema behaving autocratically, she says
Controversy continues to dog Silambarasan TR — his mother Usha T. Rajendar has released a video accusing the Tamil Film Producers Council (TFPC) of threatening the family.
The development is a fallout of the tiff we had reported earlier, between TFPC, the supreme body of Tamil cinema, and the Film Employees Federation of South India (FEFSI) over FEFSI allowing the shoot of STR’s Vendhu Thanindhadu Kaadu despite TFPC asking the Federation not to cooperate till the actor paid his dues to four producers, including Michael Rayappan.
Usha has now come out with the family’s side of the issue, lashing out at many people. In the video, she says, “Every time there is an issue, TFPC says they will stop the shoot of Silambarasan’s movie. It happened during the shoot of his recent release, Eeswaran. And now it’s happening for VTK!”
She stated that her son had helped Michael Rayappan by completing the film Anbanavan Asaradhavan Adangadhavan without receiving salary dues of `3.5 crore, and made sure the film was released on time. She also claimed that in addition to this pending amount, the producer hadn’t paid either GST or TDS on the money paid to STR.
“However, Michael Rayappan called for a meeting with the then TFPC members. Vishal, who was the then TFPC president, passed a resolution saying STR had to act in a film for Michael Rayappan for free, failing which, he had to pay `2.40 crore to him for every film which he would act in. This was done without our consent,” Usha alleged in the video.
“We wonder what makes the present TFPC headed by Murali Ramasamy act autocratically and indulge in katta panchayat claiming they are close to TN CM MK Stalin and his son actor/MLA Udhayanidhi Stalin, and that no one can question them,” she said, adding, “We are sure that the CM will not support unlawful activities like stopping STR’s film shoot. TFPC is misusing the CM’s name.”
She asserted that if the situation continued, she would meet the Tamil Nadu CM to sort out the issue.