Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s crew stalled work on the sets of 'Bajirao Mastani' over delayed dues

Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s cast may be used to taking him as the tough taskmaster, but the filmmaker’s whip cracking doesn’t quite make the cut when it comes to the rest of his crew, it seems. Last month, 500 workers from team Bajirao Mastani stalled work after they didn’t receive their dues.

According to a source, “Bhansali’s set at Film City is huge and needs a lot of people to run the show behind the camera.

The light men, spot boys, carpenters etc work tirelessly to ensure that the captain of the ship, SLB, has no issues while shooting.

But he had not cleared their pay for the month of July-August. The workers had been regularly reminding SLB’s production about the same, but for some reason the calls went unheard.

“So one day, in the last week of August, they decided to stall work. Almost 500 workers said ‘No work till we receive the payment’.”

Another source added, “When they called off work, senior members from the Film Studio Setting and Allied Mazdoor Union reached the sets to take the matter ahead. After five hours of haggling, the workers were assured they’d gettheir dues and resumed work the next day.”

While Bhansali remained unavailable for comment, Gangeshwarlal Shrivastav, general secretary of the union confirmed the story and said, “Their daily wages were not paid and workers went on a strike on their own. When we came to know, we spoke to the necessary people on the set and the following day all payments were released.” The total amount due to all the workers was close to Rs 70 lakhs.