Politician Biren Roy and wife Meghamala established Ajanta cinema in 1948. The first film to be screened was Bhuli Nai. In 1950, Biren had given this hall on lease to a businessman and subsequently, this became a litigated property. Despite the dispute, Ratan Saha's father Makhanlal Saha bought Ajanta in the name of his wife, Suryabala, in 1972. The case, which had escalated to the Supreme Court by then, got resolved subsequently. Ajanta Cinema had big garden, which included a fountain, in front. During the widening of the Diamond Harbour Road in 1972-73, this compound was taken over by the government. During those days, Hindi films were screened at Ajanta. Bengali films were popular at the five other cinemas in Behala - Ellora, Suchitra, Ashoka, Piyasi and Pushpasree. All Amitabh Bachchan's movies were screened there. That included Deewar (1975), Don (1978) and Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978). Naache Mayuri (1986) ran for 100 days. While the films that were released there did great business, the elite crowd of Behala didn't prefer this cinema hall. Black marketers had a field day there. Makhanlal died in 1998 and son Ratan started looking after Ajanta. He started renovating the hall in 2001. The ground floor was let out to a bank while the single screen was on the first floor with 780 seats. He started screening Bengali cinema. Jeet's Saathi had run there for 100 days. In 2006, he reviewed his decision and the ground floor was completely given out for commercial use. Air conditioning was introduced then. Upstairs, he opened two screens with 300 and 160 seats respectively. Before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, the number of seats were cut down to 250 and 160.