BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya kicked up a row on Tuesday when he launched a not-so-veiled attack on Shah Rukh Khan and his film Raees on Twitter. A tweet by him seemed to urge people to watch Hrithik Roshan’s film Kaabil instead of Raees that releases the same day on January 25 and stars Pakistani actor Mahira Khan.
The tweet was accompanied by a photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi, with his torn kurta.
और हमारे भारत के #Kaabil, किसी भी परदेस के #Raees से, हर हाल में बेहतर हैं।#IndiaFirst 🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/k69hfOeoLA
— Kailash Vijayvargiya (@KailashOnline) January 24, 2017
When asked about his tweet supporting Kaabil, he said, “Those for whom the message was meant have understood”, as per PTI.
While this earned him criticism for ‘communalising films”, Vijayvargiya went on to only make it worse.
In a statement to the media, he compared SRK with Dawood Ibrahim while targeting Khan over the death of a man during heavy rush at the actor’s promotion of his film for which he travelled by train.
“There is a new tradition of promoting films. The promoters should at least take care of public convenience. If they promote films in railways, the common people will suffer. Even if Dawood appears in public, crowd will come out. So we cannot gauge the popularity (of people), at least, on the basis of crowd,” Vijayvargiya, also a Madhya Pradesh Minister, said.
He said public convenience should be kept in mind and films should be promoted without causing trouble to people.
Tragedy struck Shah Rukh Khan’s promotion campaign for his upcoming film ‘Raees’ when a man died of cardiac arrest during a massive rush to have a glimpse of the superstar at Vadodara railway station in Gujarat. Two policemen were also injured in the accident.
