Mumbai: Actor Akshay Kumar, who often faced criticism and trolling in the past for holding a Canadian passport, has reclaimed his Indian citizenship on 77th Independence Day of the country.
The actor on Tuesday took to Twitter to share a photo of his hand holding the official documents of Indian citizenship.”Dil aur citizenship, dono Hindustani. Happy Independence Day! Jai Hind! (sic).”
Dil aur citizenship, dono Hindustani.
Happy Independence Day!
Jai Hind! 🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/DLH0DtbGxk— Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) August 15, 2023
Notably, Akshay had applied for an Indian passport in 2019 but the process was delayed by the COVID pandemic. The actor had also expressed his disappointed when questioned about his “love for the country”.
According to reports, the Conservation government there granted Canadian citizenship to Akshay during or after the 2011 Canadian federal election. The actor had received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. In a 2010 interview with the Economist, he claimed he had “dual citizenship”.
Some reports suggest that he applied for Canadian citizenship when his career was going through a lean phase in the 1990s and he delivered over 15 consecutive flops.
His citizenship status came under intense scrutiny when he did not vote during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. It became a topic of debate after an interview with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Earlier this year, in an interview with AajTak, the actor said that India is everything to him and that he has already applied for a change of passport. “I never thought that I should get this passport changed but now yes, I have applied to get my passport changed and once I get the renounced status from canada….” he had said.
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