Actor Randeep Hooda has had to pay for a joke he cracked at the expense of former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati. He has been removed as ambassador of the Convention for the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) — an environmental treaty of the United Nations.
An old video recently went viral where Hooda is seen joking about Mayawati – while speaking at a media event in 2012 — which many said was “casteist and sexist”.
The CMS Secretariat said that it had come to know of that video clip recently and found the comments made by Hooda to be “offensive”.
CMS said in a statement that those comments “did not reflect the values” of the CMS Secretariat or the United Nations. The statement added that the organization wasn’t aware of the 2012 video in February 2020, when Hooda was appointed as a CMS Ambassador for Migratory Species.
The Bollywood actor had been nominated as ambassador along with Australian explorer and environmentalist Sacha Dench, and British biologist Ian Redmond OBE.
The video clip, which resurfaced on Twitter three days ago, created an uproar on social media. While several users called out the “casteist and sexist” nature of the joke, others demanded an apology from Hooda. #ArrestRandeepHooda trended on the microblogging site.
The actor is yet to issue a statement on the matter.
