Tandav, a web series released on Amazon Prime on 15 January 2021, with nine episodes of an average length of 35 to 60 minutes the story is about the political-drama.
Lead character Samar Pratap Singh (Saif Ali Khan) the son of a three-term Prime Minister, Devki Nandan Singh. PM aspirant young leader, who wants to be at least kingmaker if not king.
Anuradha Kishore (Dimple Kapadia) JLD senior party leader, a close friend, and mistress of Devki Nandan, 18 years back she stopped Devki Nandan in Delhi, from going back to hometown. Gurpal Chauhan (Sunil Grover) is the most trusted man of first Devki Nandan and then Samar Pratap Singh, who takes care of all the illegal things, police, etc. for them, even the kills people for them.
Gopal Das Munshi (Kumud Misra) Devki Nandan’s friend and party president, PM aspirant, starts mobilizing support for the PM post immediately after Devki’s death. Devki Nandan Singh (Tigmanshu Dhulia) 3 term PM, strong party leader, father of Samar Pratap Singh and Raghu Kishore Singh, he fears Samar’s nature. Shiva Shekhar (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub) VNU student leader, leftist, activist, farmers protest leader, candidate of SAI for vice president later makes own party. Vishal Awasthi (Parv Kaila) Young VNU student leader, SAI’s contestant who cheats with SAI and helps Gurpal, Gurpal kills him, to trap Chetan, a VNU president contestant. Kailash Kumar (Anup Soni) Close man of Gopal Das, a low caste representative of a party, loves Sandhya, Anuradha makes him a home minister when he was expecting HRD. Ayesha Pratap Singh (Sarah Jane Dias) Samar’s wife and party leader, helps Samar to kill Devaki Nandan. Raghu Kishore Singh (Paresh Pahuja) son of Anuradha Kishore and brother of Samar Pratap Singh, drug addict, aspirant to becomes a Defense minister. Sana Mir (Kritika Kamra) VNU student leader, contests the VNU election with Shiva, Jigar’s girlfriend who works for Samar to trap Shiva and Chetan. Maithili Sharan (Gauahar Khan) Anuradha’s secretary and advisor, works as her trusted person. Richa Avasthi (Kritika Avasthi) student and friend of Sana. Disha Kapoor (Tasneem Khan). Professor Jigar Sampath (Dino Morea) a professor of VNU and Samar’s friend, having an affair with Sana, helps Samar to trap Shiva and influence the VNU election. Professor Sandhya Nigam (Sandhya Mridul) Jigar’s separated wife, VNU Dean candidate, a rumor that “Minister Kailash helped her to be dean” troubles her, now lives with Minister Kailash and gets pregnant. Aditi Mishra (Shonali Nagrani) a 34-year-old young Mp and ex-air force pilot, desired to be the defense minister and a girlfriend of Samar. Ada Mir (Amyra Dastur) Sana’s sister, a police officer blackmails her because her boyfriend shoots himself in the bathroom and she was there at that time. Ajay Ahluwalia (Hiten Tejwani) Chief of the news channel who help Samar to picture Devaki Nandan’s murder as a natural death.
The web series has two different tracks moving parallel and not relevant to each other.
The first track is about the PM post. 2 days before the election results, exit polls show a huge win for Devki Nandan‘s party for the fourth time and he will swear again as the prime minister. But this time Samar wants to be the PM and he worked hard for it in an election. Knowing the reality, Samar murders Devki Nandan by poison in alcohol, and Alisha, Ajay, Divya, and the Doctor help to show it as natural death by a heart attack.
Immediately after Devki Nandan’s death Gopal Das starts mobilizing support to become PM, but very smartly Samar sidelines him from the race. An unknown caller calls Anuradha and tells her about Devki Nandan’s murder. For proof, he wants 100Cr from her, and to confirm it he gives the name of poison after taking 1Cr. With this, Anuradha blackmails Samar and asks to nominate herself as PM and she becomes PM. To split Samar’s loyal supporters, she allots them a strong ministry. By the time, Maithili tries to get more strong proof against Samar from a caller, and Gurpal keeps searching for a source from where she got proof against Samar. Ultimately Gurpal traps Maithili and she reveals the truth that Anuradha doesn’t have any proof against Samar. He blackmails Maithili and gets all the details. With this, she leaves Anuradha. Finally, Samar tells Anuradha to resign on medical terms and let him take over as the PM.
The second track revolves around the VNU election. This story starts with farmers’ protest for land. Imran, the VNU student leading the protest with his friend. Gurpal comes to the protest location and asks police to kill Imran, and his two friends. Police kill Imran’s friend in a fake encounter and arrest Imran from VNU. Shiva along with VNU students goes to the police station to free Imran and starts protesting there. But police deny releasing Imran and beat students. When Shiva and Shana ask a journalist friend for help, she asks for solid evidence to report that news. Shiva shoots a fake encounter video of the police, by creating the same mock scenes. This video on social media makes Shiva an overnight hero. After this Samar plans to make him king and play a kingmaker role.
After Shiva’s popularity, his friends convinced him to contest in the VNU election. Samar meets Shiva and inspires him to join politics. Samar uses a divide and rule strategy on SAI candidates, to ensure Shiva joins his party. To trap Shiva, Samar asks Gurpal to kidnap and murder Vishal and charged Chetan using Jigar, Sana. Shiva and Chetan fight and split over this. Chetan gets arrested for these charges and he gets killed in jail. Sana tries to reveal Vishal’s secret to Chetan and Shiva but Gurpal and Jigar blackmail her, finally when she tries to run away from all this with Ada, gets killed.
After all these political blunders instead of joining hands with Samar, Shiva makes his own party “TANDAVA” to contest the VNU election.
The web series ends with Shiva wins the VNU election, and Samar becomes PM.
Ada’s story doesn’t have any major impact or link with the main storyline.
The story doesn’t look realistic and is exaggerated due to the blackmailing and killing of PM to become PM and the VNU election. PM drinking alcohol, killing, blackmailing, plotting evidence, using the police, the system is shown as a casual and daily routine thing.
The story plot is weak, nothing new in it, and full of MC, BC words. Story of web series tries to in cash all the “Masala” of current hot issues like politics, farmers’ protest against land grabbing, student protest, communist/left thinking, “Aazadi” slogans, hurting “Hindu” feelings and Hindu gods, university politics, casteism, minority religion issues, extramarital affairs, etc.
Many open loops in the story for the second season plot. Except for the fantastic acting specifically of Sunil Grover, there is nothing to watch in the web series. So good to skip and save time and irritation.
Chetan Nikam 