Shatrughan Sinha supports ‘Mersal’
Former actor and BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha has extended his support to actor Vijay’s Tamil film Mersal, which featured controversial dialogues about India’s new goods and services tax (GST) and the Digital India programme.
“Why are we so defensive about a perfectly legitimate issue that has been raised in the Tamil film regarding health care and the GST? As entertainers and actors with powerful voices, we have a certain duty towards the public to make them aware of socio-political issues,” Sinha, who is a BJP member of Parliament from Patna, said.
“Why is it such a crime if Vijay who is a very powerful Tamil actor, reminds us that the poor in our country desperately need health care,” he added.
Mersal was embroiled in controversy after the Tamil Nadu unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demanded the removal of the dialogues.
However, Sinha feels that the protesters of the movie don’t represent the BJP’s official view.
“Has anyone heard the Prime Minister [Narendra Modi] or any of the top leaders commenting on the issue? It is only some elements in our party who are eager to prove that they are more loyal than the others,” Sinha said.
“They are the ones jumping in to attack this perfectly harmless and very significant point raised in the film. Instead of attacking Vijay and questioning his credentials, we should all take his words seriously and work towards improving health care in our country,” he added. Sinha feels there is no harm in pulling up the government for mistakes. “We should gracefully accept that demonetisation was a mistake. I was one of the first to point it out that it was not right. So many have lost their jobs, all their savings. Likewise perhaps even the GST is not what it was meant to be,” he said. — Vijay in ‘Mersal’.