Exclusive: Blame Ritesh Sidhwani for Raees and Sultan's Eid clash

Mumbai: Often it is the actor who faces the wrath of any controversy around a film whereas producers, who are not known faces, sit back and enjoy the show. Being the face of the film, actors have to go around defending or talking about clashes or any controversy around the film. Which was the case of this year’s big EID clash Raees and Sultan.

While promoting his last release Dilwale, Shah Rukh Khan had to clarify on the big clash with Salman Khan many times. Ditto for Salman who also had his share of versions about the unfortunate clash. But hold on… Who really got the two actors in this mess? Producer Ritesh Sidhwani from Excel Entertainment.

Yes, so here’s what happened. Rumours that have been doing the rounds in the industry reveal that Ritesh was aware about Sultan's release date but he still decided to bring Raees out on the same day. A source told us, "Last year, when reports had started doing the rounds of Salman Khan in Yash Raj Film’s next, producer Ritesh Sidhwani made a call to YRF head honcho Aditya Chopra. Yash Raj Films hadn’t made an official announcement yet due to Salman’s ongoing case.”

So what happened during the phone call? The source added, "Ritesh Sidhwani started sniffing around asking Aditya about the developments on Sultan. He also asked Adi when he intends to release it. Anyone who knows Aditya Chopra is aware that he is the most straightforward guy in the industry. He doesn’t mince words and is always to the point. He heard Ritesh out and told him he wants to release the film on EID 2016 but is waiting for the verdict on Salman’s case. That marked the end of the phone."

Few days later Ritesh took to his social media page and announced that Raees is coming on Eid. When this news reached Aditya Chopra he was shocked. He felt cheated that a friend sneaked in only to extract some information.

Anyways, when it was clear that Salman wasn’t going to jail and he got a clean chit in his case, YRF went ahead and announced Sultan’s release date as planned. The clash of both the films shocked everyone in the industry.

Ritesh claimed to everyone around him that he was the first one to announce his release date so he hasn’t done anything wrong. However it has now come to surface that drill of clarifications SRK and Salman had to give about the EID clash, Ritesh is rumoured to be the root cause of it.