Aishwarya and Devgan in Raj Kumar Santoshi’s Saamna

Aishwarya Rai and Ajay Devgan will lead the cast of Rajkumar Santoshi’s next film Saamna which is believed to be based on a contentious subject.

The film was launched last weekend in the presence of its stars Ash, Ajay and Nana Patekar . Saamna also has Akshay Kumar , but he wasn’t at the launch because he was shooting for another movie in Chandigarh.

While none of the stars and nor the director revealed anything about the theme of Saamna, a report on Variety says that the movie is based on the subject of exploitation of devotees by the so-called religious gurus.

Nana Patekar plays the role of a charlatan guru in the film. Ajay Devgan, who played a negative role in Santoshi’s last film Khakee , will play a positive character in the film. However, it is not clear whether Ash is cast opposite him or Akshay.

Aishwarya too did not elaborate on her role during the film’s launch.

A report quotes Ash as saying this about the film’s theme: “It is the basic nature of human society to not take a stance in a lot of situations. We see that in our day-to-day life. We have to stand in spite of our fears.”

About her co-stars in the film, Ash said: “I had a good time working with Ajay and Akshay for Khakee. And this is the first time I am working with Nana Patekar. So I am looking forward to this film.”

Besides Saamna, Ash presently has only one other Bollywood project in her kitty - the Dhoom sequel.

At the launch, Ajay too sounded optimistic that this year will turn out better than the last one for him. He said he was eagerly looking forward to the release of his films Main Aisa Hi Hoon and Kaal .

Saamna will most likely release by the end of this year or early next year.