FTII: Shotgun backs Chauhan, says should be given time

As the strike at the FTII entered the 13th day, BJP leader and yesteryear actor Shatrughan Sinha on Wednesday said revoking the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as chairman of the institute is unlikely and asked the students to resume the classes. Pahlaj Nihalani, whose appointment as the Censor Board chief had also kicked up a controversy few months back, also defended Chauhan’s appointment and alleged that students at the campus in Pune were indulging in politics.

“I had a long talk with everybody concerned. It is not easy for a government to go back on a decision. It is a democratically-elected government, which took the decision and it cannot give into the demands of the mobs,” Sinha, an alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), told PTI over phone.

Sinha urged the students, who are questioning the merit in the appointment of Chauhan, to resume classes as soon as possible and not to waste their time in such activities.

Sinha asked the students not to go into the past of the actor, instead he should be given a chance to prove himself as an administrator.