India’s election commission has halted the release of a controversial film about the life of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, on the eve of the first day of voting in the country’s nationwide elections.

The film PM Narendra Modi was set to be released in cinemas on Thursday, when Indians start voting in 91 seats across the country.

A poster promoting the film PM Narendra Modi, with the tag line ‘Patriosm is my strength’. Photograph: Legend Global Studio

Several opposition parties had argued the film was a hagiographic depiction of Modi’s life that amounted to a disguised political advertisement and should be banned until after the last phase of voting on 19 May.

On Wednesday, India’s election regulator said the release of the Modi movie and two other biographical films about political figures would be deferred until after the polls so as not to “disturb the level playing field during the elections”.

India’s stringent election rules demand all official advertisements be counted towards a party’s spending cap and receive pre-approval from the authorities. Television channels are required to give equal hearings to all major parties and campaigning must stop 48 hours before voting begins.

In the past Indian election commission officers have ordered that elephant statues be covered up during campaigns involving a party whose icon is the pachyderm, and that cooling fans in a voting station be removed so as not to favour a candidate who had adopted the fan as his official symbol.

Had it been released the film would have been screened throughout the election campaign and its poster – depicting Modi surrounded by children under the tagline “patriotism is my strength” – could have been freely displayed.

It had been the subject of a war of words between the filmmakers and the main opposition Congress party. Vivek Oberoi, the actor and Modi supporter who plays the titular character, had said last week that Congress was “scared of the film”.

A Congress spokesman had responded saying the movie was a “bogus film of a flop hero, a flop producer and is made on a flop person who has proved to be a zero”.

The film portrays different stages of the Indian leader’s life including his childhood as a chaiwala selling tea at railway stations, his time as a wandering sage in the Himalayas and the years he spent disguised in a beard and turban as a fugitive during the 1975 emergency, when the country’s civil liberties were suspended.