Patna, April 19 (IANS) Author Chetan Bhagat has sought Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav’s help for shooting of a film based on his bestselling novel ‘Half Girlfriend’ in the state, said officials here on Tuesday.
Fearing protest against the likely shooting of the film, Bhagat has approached Tejaswi Yadav for help and security. “Tejaswi Yadav has assured all help to Chetan Bhagat,” an official said.
According to officials, Bhagat is keen to shoot the film at famous heritage site “Golghar” in Patna, the Patna railway junction and at banks of Ganga river here.
Last year, a scion of the erstwhile princely state of Dumraon in Bihar had slapped a Rs.1 crore defamation suit on Chetan Bhagat, claiming that male members of the royal family were maliciously portrayed as alcoholics and gamblers in the bestselling novel ‘Half Girlfriend’.
The suit was filed in Delhi High Court by Chandra Vijay Singh, son of Maharaja Bahadur Kamal Singh, a two-term Lok Sabha MP and the last ruler of Dumraon before its accession to the Indian union in 1952, for “expressed and implied references” to his family in Bhagat’s book that are “false and derogatory in nature”.