The National Commission for Women on Monday issued a notice to actor Vivek Oberoi and asked him to explain a tweet that linked the exit polls to actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s private life. The commission’s chairperson Rekha Sharma asked Oberoi to apologise on social media as well as in person to Bachchan, ANI reported.
Oberoi had posted a meme that referred to Bachchan’s family and her past relationships and compared it to the exit polls. “Haha! creative! No politics here....just life,” the actor had tweeted. Oberoi, who is playing the role of Narendra Modi in an upcoming biopic on the prime minister, was on the list of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s star campaigners in Gujarat.
Sharma said the panel will consider legal action if he does not comply with its demands, ANI reported. “We will be talking to Twitter to remove that tweet immediately,” she added.
The commission described Oberoi’s post as insulting and misogynistic. “The post made is extremely offensive, unethical and shows disrespect towards the dignity of women,” the statement said.
‘They could not stop my film, now they are trying this’
Oberoi said he would like to explain to the National Commission for Women and the Maharashtra Commission for Women that he had not done anything wrong, ANI reported.
“I do not know why people are making a huge issue out of it,” he told the news agency. “Someone had sent me a meme which made fun of me. I laughed and I appreciated the person for his creativity. If someone mocks you, you should not take it seriously.”
Oberoi claimed those in the meme – actors Salman Khan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan – do not have a problem. “Didi put someone behind bars for a meme, people are saying I should be put behind bars too,” the actor claimed, referring to the arrest of a BJP youth leader in West Bengal. “They could not stop my film, now they are trying this.”
Oberoi said he does not mind apologising for sharing the meme. “But tell me what wrong have I done?” he asked. “If I have done something wrong I will apologise. I do not think I have done anything wrong. What’s wrong in it? Somebody tweeted a meme and I laughed at it.”
Most exit polls released on Sunday declared that the Narendra Modi-led government would get another term. Some of them predicted that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government would get more than 300 seats, crossing the 272 majority mark in the Lok Sabha.
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