Government rule) is a 2008 Indian Hindi-language political crime thriller film directed by Ram Gopal Varma.

Anita Rajan (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan), is the CEO of Shepard Power Plant based in London, holds a meeting with Mike Rajan (Victor Banerjee), her chairman father, and Hassan Qazi (Govind Namdeo), as a seemingly shady business adviser and facilitator; regarding an ambitious proposal to set up a multibillion-dollar power plant in rural parts of the state of Maharashtra in India.

When Anita asks him for a solution, Qazi states that enlisting the support of Subhash Nagre (Amitabh Bachchan) (commonly referred to by his title of Sarkar), who he describes as a criminal in the garb of a popular and influential political leader, might help their cause.

During their chat Shankar mentions that his toughest decision of life was to kill his own elder brother Vishnu, Anita tells that her father never saw her as a daughter and was her boss.

Shankar replaces Bala (Sumit Nijhawan) as head over Chander (Ravi Kale), and asks him to quickly find out who was behind this brutal attack.

He also tells her that these people were just pawns and the mastermind behind all this was his own guru, Rao Sahab (Dilip Prabhawalkar) who wanted his grandson Somji to take over Shankar.

"[11] Sify gave a two-star rating and said, "The only reason you might want to catch this is the performance level and the relatively good ending.

[13] The Economic Times gave a three star rating out of five and said "Sarkar Raj clearly gains major marks for its clever culmination, which was so much lacking from recent RGV products.

The considerately and crisply penned dialogues by Prashant Pandey add a lot of insight to the scenes and depth to the characterizations.

[16] Critic Nathan Southern of MSN gave four stars citing that "Sarkar Raj thrives on its narrative cliffhangers, that the film never once fails to engage the audience; the premise and its characters are rock-solid, its dialogue convincing, and its suspense palpable.

Varma and scriptwriter Prashant Pandey pack such unusual twists and double-crosses into the tale that even the most hardened and seasoned moviegoer will find the conclusion impossible to foresee".

The Filmfare Magazine (August 2008 issue) and other media declared it to be among the only four hits in the first half of 2008 (along with Race, Jodhaa Akbar and Jannat).

According to the year end report of The Free Trade Journal, Sarkar Raj was the seventh highest all-India grosser of the year after (in order) Ghajini, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Golmaal Returns, Singh Is Kinng, Dostana and Race.

Apparently Ram Gopal Verma had even shown Raj Thackeray rushes of the film to allay his fears of being wrongly portrayed.