Suvendu Adhikari made the announcement at a Kolkata Dussehra event attended by Ranbir Kapoor and Yash, where a 60-foot Ravana effigy was set on fire.
Ramayana just got a tax break in West Bengal, and the announcement came with fireworks, literally.
Speaking to ANI on Tuesday, October 20, Suvendu Adhikari said the Nitesh Tiwari film, with Ranbir Kapoor as Rama and Yash as Ravana, would be exempt from state entertainment tax. He placed it alongside The Kerala Story, The Kashmir Files and The Bengal Files, which he said have received or will receive the same treatment. He didn't stop there, floating the idea of future mythological productions built around Krishna, Arjuna and the Mahabharata.
The announcement landed at a Dussehra celebration in Kolkata's Salt Lake, organised by Salt Lake Sanskritik Sansad under the theme 'Ram Er Ayodhya – Ram Ki Ayodhya'. The evening had all the trimmings: a towering Rama statue, a drone light show, cultural performances and a Ravan Dahan where Adhikari himself set alight a 60-foot effigy. Producer Namit Malhotra, director Nitesh Tiwari and actor Ravi Dubey were on stage too.
Adhikari also used the moment to address a tragedy, referring to an incident at a Durga Puja pandal in Kolkata's Chorbagan area. He said the gathering had observed a moment of silence for the family affected, a reminder that even a film promotion in this city doesn't happen in a bubble.
Ranbir and Yash work the crowd
Ranbir Kapoor thanked Adhikari and the audience for the welcome, calling it a matter of "great happiness and good fortune" to mark Dussehra in Kolkata. He leaned into the festival's message too. "No matter how powerful evil may be, truth and goodness triumph," he said, before signing off with a Jai Shri Ram.
Yash, playing Ravana, went personal. He recalled travelling to Kolkata by train around 2004 or 2005 for his early theatre days, working backstage during the Narendra Festival, long before the Monster Mind Creations founder became one of the biggest names in Indian cinema. He remembered the rasgullas and gulab jamuns from that trip in some detail and tied the evening back to the film's theme: good over evil, always.
None of this changes the release calendar. Ramayana Part 1 is still set for a worldwide release on November 5, across Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, with an IMAX run included. Part 2 arrives during Diwali 2027. Sony Pictures handles the film outside India, Dharma Productions takes the Hindi market at home.
What's less settled is how much the tax exemption actually moves the needle for a film already backed by Prime Focus Studios, DNEG and Yash's own production banner, on a scale that doesn't need state subsidies to survive its opening weekend. But in a year where mythological and devotional cinema has become a political talking point as much as a box office category, a chief minister lighting a Ravana effigy on camera is its own kind of marketing, tax break or not.
Two weeks out from release, the bigger question for Ramayana is simpler: does it hold up on screen. Kolkata just got its answer in spectacle. The rest of the country finds out November 5.
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