Just over two months after being elected President of the Association of Malayalam Movies Artistes (AMMA) for the third successive term, superstar Mohanlal on Tuesday announced he was stepping down and the rest of the 17-member Executive Committee also quit, in wake of criticism of the film body over the revelations made in the Justice Hema Committee report.
It was at the AMMA’s annual general body in June that Mohanlal secured his third three-year term through the ballot. Even as the new team was just settling down, the release of the Hema Committee report, which was kept in cold storage following a long-drawn legal battle, was finally released last Monday and created shock with its revelations of widespread sexual exploitation of women in the Malayalam film industry.
The first casualty was AMMA General Secretary Siddique, who quit on Sunday after a former woman actor accused him of sexual harassment years back. On Monday, several former actresses with allegations that actors like CPI-M legislator Mukesh, Maniyan Pillai Raju, Jayasurya, Edavela Babu, and Baburaj had misbehaved with them.
The opposition Congress and the BJP seized on the issue and started accusing the Pinarayi Vijayan government of shielding the accused and termed its championing of women’s rights nothing but mere talk.
Even in the AMMA, a major difference of opinion surfaced and and with Mohanlal’s wife in hospital, the proposed meeting of its executive did not take place. On the demand of a section in the AMMA, an online meeting took place on Tuesday and it was decided that the entire executive will step down
Now, a special general body meeting will be held in two months, when a new President, General Secretary and executive will take over and until then, the outgoing committee will work as an ad-hoc committee.
Meanwhile, a section of the film industry that does not see eye to eye with Mohanlal and his team noted that the veteran superstar failed to utter even a word in the eight days following the release of the Hema Committee. Director Vinayan said this can be seen as running away as when the President quits, then that person need not comment anymore.