An unsavoury episode involving veteran actor Amol Palekar being interrupted by a couple of members of the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) over his criticism of the Government on Sunday snowballed into a controversy, with the Opposition slamming the attempts to curb his freedom to disapprove the Government's decision to scrap two artists’ advisory committees operating from Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Speaking at the inauguration of an exhibition "Inside The Empty Box" organised by NGMA in memory of artist Prabhakar Barwe here, Palekar slammed the Government for the scrapping of artists’ advisory committees operating from Mumbai and Bengaluru and moving the process relating to decisions on the theme/content of the NGMA exhibitions to Delhi.

“Many of you may not know that this retrospective will be the last show that is decided by the advisory committee of local artists and not by some bureaucrat or an agent of the Government with an agenda of either moral policing or proliferation of certain art commensurate with an ideological incline,” the veteran actor said.

“As of November 13, 2018, the artistes’ advisory committees operating at both regional centers i.e. at Mumbai and Bangalore have been abolished, is what I have learnt!... Till now, which exhibition will be held at which space of the 2 NGMA branches, namely at Mumbai and Bangalore, was decided by the local artists’ advisory committee,” Palekar said.

“I have also learnt that as of November 13, 2018, all these decisions would be taken from Delhi by the Ministry of Culture. Accordingly at present, no new committee has been convened after the expiry of the old committee’s tenure that ended on 25th October 2018,” Palekar noted.

At this point, a gallery member interrupted him, requesting that Amol Palekar only talk about the artist. "This is not needed at the moment, sorry....The function is about Prabhakar Barwe, please stick to that,” she said.