A space of less than a week separates Nawazuddin Siddiqui from what could be the most decisive film of his career. Ever since the trailer of Thackeray — the biopic on the late Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray — dropped online, it was widely debated whether releasing the film in the year of elections was a way of swaying public opinion. "Balasaheb ko propaganda ki kya zaroorat?," cuts in Siddiqui, when asked if the Abhijit Panse-directed biopic is a propaganda film. "It is his birthday, so the film is releasing now. It has nothing to do with any political motive. If the film were to be released any other year, the response wouldn't be different."

In Bollywood, biopics tend to glorify the muse. Considering the film has, at its heart, a man who was charismatic and controversial in equal measure, the makers would be tempted to take the same approach. "Balasaheb was already a controversial man. There is no scope of whitewashing him or playing neutral with him. The right approach would be to show him the way he was."