Loknayak is a film based on the life of Bharat Ratna Jayaprakash Narayan.Prakash Jha directed this 112-minute film in 2004.In the film, Chetan Pandit enacted the role of Jayaprakash Narayan and Tisca Chopra played role of Prabhavati Devi, wife of JP.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Cast

• Chetan Pandit as Jayaprakash Narayan
• Tisca Chopra as Prabhavati Devi
• Tom Alter as Maulana Azad
• Gyan Dev Singh as Vinoba Bhave
• Ashok Chauhan as Mahatma Gandhi
• Meenakshi Thakur as Kasturba
• Ashok Banthia as Ram Manohar Lohia
• Atul Srivastava as Lal Bahadur Shastri

Production

Filming

Loknayak was shot in Hazaribag, Patna, Sitab Diara, Mumbai and Satara.The budget of film is ₹90 lakh (US$110,000).Prakash Jha made the film on the basis of in-depth research along with interviews of eminent personalities like late Sachchidanand, Chandra Shekhar, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani and Bimal Prasad.

Release

Prasar Bharti initially objected to the release of the film due to some objectionable dialogues.The film was slated to be shown on National channel of Doordarshan on October 11,2004 i.e on Jayaprakash Narayan's birth anniversary ,but later the plan was dropped.Prasar Bharati suggested to Prakash Jha some 12 changes such as to remove some of the frames containing dialogues and slogans like " Tanashahi ka shikar hua ", "Indira Hatao ", "Sanjay Gandhi had a motive", " Jail mein kyon marein, bahar marein ", " Tanashahi Rajya nahi chalega " and "Indira ji ne JP ke sath jo zyadati ki ".According to Prasar Bharti, "Longish scenes relating to JP's escape from the Hazaribag jail and Diwali celebrations are overdramatised and need to be curtailed. The map shown in the beginning does not show the geographical boundaries of undivided India correctly," .But it was decided to release by Prasar Bharti to release the film in first week of december 2004 ,as Jha didnot agreed to make any changes in the film.