'Bombay' a No-No in Lyrics, Says Censor Board, Triggering Hashtag

'Bombay' was trending on twitter today courtesy a controversy over an English song, the lyrics of which have to be edited to remove references to the city, as ordered by India's censor board.

The financial capital was re-named Mumbai in 1995 after an aggressive campaign by the regional Shiv Sena party which governed the state at the time in a coalition agreement with the BJP.

Pankaj Nihalani, who took over as chief of the censor board last month, said the decision had been taken by his predecessor Leela Samson, who was appointed by the previous Congress-led government.  Mr Nihalani, however, told NDTV that he agrees with Ms Samson's call.

The artiste, Mihir Joshi, released an album called 'Mumbai Blues' last year; a music video for his song, titled 'Sorry', gained traction online, partly because it refers to the Nirbhaya case of 2010 in which a young student was fatally gang-raped on a moving bus in Delhi.

Mr Joshi in an interview to newspaper mid-day said, "The song is available online and when the music company approached the censor board to release it on television, they objected to the word Bombay and asked them to beep it out. The label agreed since they want this song to reach out to as many people as possible."

"The song sounds funny after the word is beeped out and, in some YouTube videos, the word appears in the lyrics on screen but not in the vocals," he added.

Sources in the censor board said the record label and the singer did not exercise their right to appeal the decision.

Sanjay Jha, a spokesperson for the Congress party tweeted,

Yeh hai Bombay meri jaan! Is it true that the Censor Board has a problem with "#Bombay"? Wow!!! Seriously? If so, they are insane.

- Sanjay Jha (@JhaSanjay) February 1, 2015

Here are some other tweets on the controversy.
 

What about #Bombay Stock Exchange & BEST buses now!?!

- Shilpa Kannan (@shilpakannan) February 2, 2015