Explained: Why Shashi Tharoor is seeking legal advice against Vivek Agnihotri
Agnihotri, whose film ‘The Vaccine War’ is releasing Thursday, had suggested earlier that Tharoor and Kejriwal promoted foreign vaccines in lieu of money
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in an X (Twitter) post on Wednesday (September 27) wrote that he was “seeking legal advice” against filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri over the latter’s remarks suggesting that Tharoor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal promoted foreign vaccines in lieu of money. Here is what the row is about.
Vivek Agnihotri’s remarks
Agnihotri, whose latest film The Vaccine War is slated to release on Thursday (September 28), made the allegation in a recent interview given to a media house. In a clip from the interview that has gone viral, Vivek Agnihotri says that he has no objection to celebrities promoting a product in exchange for money, but people holding constitutional posts should not do it.
“If a right-wing person promotes [Shah Rukh Khan’s film] Jawaan for some money, that’s not a problem. They are just earning some money. Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, and cricketers like Virat Kohli promote products that they don’t use and never will. That’s a business give and take. But it is very concerning if people holding Constitutional posts take money to promote something against the interest of the country,” Agnihotri can be heard saying.
Next, prodded by the interviewer, Agnihotri names Kejriwal and Tharoor as two people holding Constitutional posts who have done so. Agnihotri even asserts that he is telling the truth. “We have shown everything in the movie. Certain things are blurred in the Indian version since we cannot show those, but in the overseas version, it is all there,” Agnihotri says.
Tharoor’s X post
While Kejriwal is yet to respond to the viral clip, Tharoor on Wednesday, reacting to a post by another user suggesting that both the AAP leader and the Thiruvananthapuram MP should sue the director for making these “wild allegations, as no one is talking about his film”, wrote that he was seeking legal advice.
“It is obviously a cheap bid for publicity, but the concern is that once a lie is repeated often enough, some people will start to believe it. Am seeking legal advice,” reads Tharoor’s post.
This is not the first time Agnihotri has got into a spat with the suave Congress leader. He has sparred with Tharoor over the latter’s post on his previous film The Kashmir Files and Tharoor’s X post on Mughals.
