Marathi film personalities stage ''Gandhigiri''

Kolhapur, Dec 1 (UNI) Personalities associated with Marathi film industry today staged ''Gandhigiri'' in front of the city's famous Jayprabha Studio, urging its owner melody queen Lata Mangeshkar to cancel the sell of land for commercial development.

The studio was founded on eleven acres of land by late Chhatrapati Rajaram Maharaj in 1934 in the name of Cinetone, which was later purchased by Bhalji Pendharkar from the princely state of Kolhapur and renamed as Jayprabha Studio.

Later, Pendharkar due to some undisclosed problems handed over the studio to Lata Mangeshkar, and since then the ownership is with her.

Recently, Mangeshkar sold about seven acres of land from the studio's total eleven acre for commercial development. Since then, the citizens, political parties and other organisations opposed the sell.

The Ganghigiri programme, organised by Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Chitrapat Mahamandal (ABMCM), was led by its president Ajay Sarpotdar, vice president Subhash Bhurke and its directors, including acress Smita Talwalkar and Satish Bidkar.

At the entrance of the studio, Sarpotdar and Talwalkar presented a memorandum, listing their demands. In the memorandum, they stated that the studiuo was 'karmbhumi' of one of the pioneers of the film industry late Bhaji Pendharkar. It was also witness to development of Marathi films and Hindi cinema too. This memory is closed to the heart of the locals, hence the sell of the studio should be stopped to respect Kolhapur people's sentiment, the memorandum stated.

In order to keep studio intact Mahamandal will press the issue with all democratic way since the issue is related to marathi film industry development birth,mr sarpotdar told reporters.

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