Over the past week, superstar Rajinikanth has been at the centre of a controversy over a proposed biopic on Tipu Sultan, the legendary ruler of Mysore who is considered one of the greatest rulers of India by some, and an anti-Hindu, anti-Tamil tyrant by others. While it was the Hindu fringe-group Hindu Munnani which protested the movie first, asking that Rajini not agree to act in a movie on Tipu, TN BJP leaders too jumped on the ban-wagon soon.

But nobody stopped to ask, how did this controversy suddenly break out? At what stage is the movie?

The root of the controversy is a question posed to businessman-producer Ashok Kheny during a press conference few days back. 

While he was talking about another upcoming movie, a reporter asked him about the status of his 'old' Tipu Sultan project, and Kheny said casually that he had approached Rajinikanth for the movie and that he still wishes to complete it. Some media organizations reported on it.

The eagle-eyed smart-alecs in Hindu Munnani saw great potential in this small piece of news, and announced that Rajini must not take up the movie.

What’s funny, is that the ‘movie’ is still at an idea stage. And the last and only time Kheny discussed this even with Rajinikanth was more than two years ago. Yes, two years ago. Kheny has confirmed this to The News Minute. Since then, Kheny has worked on other things, and Rajinikanth perhaps only has a faint memory of this discussion.

“We didn’t start the controversy. In fact we did not want to do controversial figures. We were considering some other rulers, but Rajinikanth said that he did not want to do such roles. So we thought Tipu Sultan, who fought against the British with the help of Hindus and Muslims, was a good ideas,” says Kheny.

So how far along was the project?

“We had done the research. We discussed with historians, read a few books. We started writing, but then Rajini fell ill and we didn’t take it further,” says Kheny, adding that since then he has met Rajinikanth couple of times but never discussed the project.

Basically, the movie was going nowhere. And for a dead project, thanks to Hindu Munnani, it sure got a lot of attention. “Next time I meet Rajinikanth, I will meet him with the full script,” says Kheny.