Kolaveri Bangalore concert organisers plans to sue against Dhanush

        Hardly 500 people turned up at the Palace Grounds for the ‘KolaveriKolaveri Concert’ last week though it was widely advertised that Tamil actor Dhanush would be present at the event. The ‘shockingly low turn-out’ has led to a major fall-out with key players behind the concert blaming each other for the muddle. To begin with, the sponsors have come under fire after Zubair Akhtar (one of the organisers) said that he “received threatening calls from people from the Kannada film industry”. This has irked the local film personalities no end.

Kannada film chamber

     “Every time they have a flop, they blame it on us. Tamil movies are released every week and people watch them. Nobody stops them. And when 500 people turn up for an event, they blame us. We have our own things to worry about. If he can’t name who made the call, he should shut up. We are asking the Film Chamber to take legal action against this person for unnecessarily dragging the film industry’s name. Who gave him the right to speak negatively about the industry? If it is true that he got a threat call, then he should approach the police, instead of blaming the Kannada film industry,” said producer Anaji Nagaraj. Producer M Manjunath said, “It looks like anybody can make a comment against our industry and get away. The Film Chamber has to make this guy apologise or take legal action.” 

    However, Akhtar was fighting fire on Thursday. “It was a mis-communication. I only meant to say that it was a crank call by somebody. A crank call is different from calls from any organisation or film industry. It is a sensitive thing and I am in fact grateful for the industry for supporting me. Ramya and Yogi appeared for the show.” 

    Meanwhile, the organisers are demanding compensation from Dhanush. “The contract we made with the local co-ordinators clearly says that Dhanush will be present for at least one hour. But he stayed for only 10 minutes. Our legal team is talking to the co-ordinator. We could not talk to Dhanush directly so far. If he does not revert, we will have to take legal action,” Akhtar said. However, he refused to reveal what amount had been paid to Dhanush. Sources said that the actor demanded Rs 15 lakh while the organisers paid only Rs 3 lakh. So instead of one hour, the actor came on stage for just 10 minutes.

CCL Event logo

     Akhtar blames the Celebrity Cricket League for the flop show. “We did not anticipate the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu CCL final that was played the same day. We had decided on the date earlier, people obviously wanted to see many stars on TV instead of one on stage,” he said. 

Yesterday's article:

Dhanush unhappy with the promoters of Bangalore Kolaveri concert