Mumbai: Actress-turned-politician, Kangana Ranaut, during a recent interaction with media, trained her guns on comedian Kunal Kamra for his distasteful remarks against Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Eknath Shinde.
While talking to journalists on the premises of the Old Parliament House, Kangana recollected how Kunal had once made fun of a part of her house getting demolished. “The way he was making fun of me and somewhere, the incident that was done to me illegally, he was making fun of that. I will not connect that incident with this incident at all,” she said while defending the demolition carried out at the hotel where the gig was filmed.
She also slammed the comedian for making fun of the Deputy CM. “The person who is a part of the government or is in power, the person who has it, his honour is everything. You are defaming him in the name of comedy. You are insulting him. You are disregarding his work. Shinde ji used to drive a rickshaw once upon a time. Today he has come so far on his own,” Kangana, as quoted by News18, said.
She continued, “And, who are these people? What are their own credentials? Who are these people who have not been able to do anything in life, who have not been able to do anything in life? If I can say, if they can write, then write something in literature, some kind of comedy. Does he write anything in literature? Like I say in our films also, there is some kind of comedy dialogue writing, screenwriting, abusing in the name of comedy, making fun of our texts in the name of comedy, making fun of people, making fun of mothers and sisters is not right”.
“where is our society going? Where is this influencer going for a two-minute frame? We have to think about this”, the actress questioned.
“The Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis has also said that we will have to take responsibility somewhere. What we are saying about whom, when there are repercussions of that”, she added.
Earlier, Samajwadi Party (SP) MP and veteran actress Jaya Bachchan defended the comedian amid the controversy and questioned restrictions on freedom of expression.
“If there is a restriction on speaking, what will become of you? You are anyway in a bad situation. There are restrictions on you. You would be told to speak just on this and nothing else, that do not interview Jaya Bachchan,” Jaya told mediapersons at Parliament premises on the vandalism of the comedy club in Mumbai.
“Where is freedom of speech? There is freedom of action only when there is a ruckus – beat up the opposition, rape women, murder them. What else? You (Eknath Shinde) left your real party and formed another party for power. Isn’t that an insult to Balasaheb?” she added.
Read more: ‘Where Is Freedom Of Speech’? Jaya Bachchan Defends Kunal Kamra Amid Controversy
In a statement on his social media handles, Kamra, however, refused to apologise for his remarks and said he will not bow down to the mob that’s targeting him. “Our right to freedom of speech and expression is not only to be used to fawn over the powerful and rich even though today’s media would have us believe otherwise. Your inability to take a joke at the expense of a powerful public figure does not change the nature of my right. As far as I know, it is not against the law to poke fun at our leaders and the circus that is our political system,” he wrote.
Maharashtra deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde, on the other hand, likened comedian his jibe to taking “supari” (contract) to speak against someone, and added that action would led to a reaction if a decorum is not maintained while making a satire.
