We are not Congress stooges: Censor Board's Ira Bhaskar

New Delhi, Jan 19: Academician Ira Bhaskar, one of the 10 members to quit the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) following chairperson Leela Samson's resignation, says they are "not Congress stooges" and were never "rebels without a cause". A proof, she says, is the December 2013 letter in which the board had stated to the then Information and Broadcasting minister, their concerns about the "difficulties and obstacles" to the realisation of their goals. Jaitley in a Facebook post titled "Rebels Without a Cause" Saturday slammed the “alleged interference by the government and corruption in the (censor) board” cited by Samson and other members. He even said they were all “UPA appointees” and if there’s any corruption, they “have themselves to blame”. But Bhaskar, a professor of Cinema Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University here, says that the matter for them is not about the BJP or the Congress. "It's not about the party, the bureaucrats or the ministers. It is about the health of the CBFC -- the film certification process and by extension social interests as well." "We are not Congress stooges, all of us who have resigned. We are academicians, professionals and film critics, and we have been trying to make efforts to get the ministry to pay attention to our attempts to make film certification a transparent and efficient process," Bhaskar told IANS in an interview.