Yogi Adityanath compares SRK with 26/11 attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed

Controversial Bharatiya Janata Party MP Yogi Adityanath compared Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan with Pakistani terrorist Hafiz Saeed on Wednesday, over the “extreme intolerance” comment by the former. The second attack on the actor by a BJP leader in as many days has sparked condemnation.

Hitting out at Shah Rukh two days after the actor added his voice to the protest by the intelligentsia against the ‘climate of intolerance’, Adityanath also suggested that he go to Pakistan. The MP from Gorakhpur said Shah Rukh should remember that if a “huge mass” of people in the country would boycott his films then he would also have to wander on streets like a “normal Muslim”. Claiming that in the name of secularism, some artists and authors with radical views have started speaking as “anti-nationals”, Adityanath said “unfortunately” Shah Rukh has also matched their voice and lent his support.

According to Adityanath, this was not for the first time that Shah Rukh was doing this. “I am saying these people are speaking in a terrorist’s language. I think there is no difference between the language of Shah Rukh Khan and Hafiz Saeed (the mastermind of 26/11 attacks),” he said. “We welcome that people go there (Pakistan), at least people who defame India will understand their own originality,” he added.

Earlier, senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya, in a series of tweets on Tuesday, triggered a controversy when he painted Shah Rukh as “anti-national” and said that the actor’s “soul” is in Pakistan though he lives in India. Under fire for the remark, Vijayvargiya, a BJP general secretary, withdrew his tweets on Wednesday but asserted that if there had been intolerance in India, Shah Rukh would not have been the most popular actor after Amitabh Bachchan. He, however, refused to apologise for his remarks.

The attack against Shah Rukh by BJP leaders came notwithstanding the refrain of BJP’s top brass in the recent weeks that partymen avoid controversial comments.

Reacting to Adityanath’s statement, Congress said it was condemnable and would cause tension. “Nobody can send an individual to Pakistan,” Congress leader Tom Vadakkan said while his party colleague P C Chacko feared such comments would create tension.

“If you have views against the dispensation of this country you go to Pakistan... anybody wants to tweet something he has to go to Pakistan.. Are they trying to promote Pakistan tourism?” asked Vadakkan.

Sadhvi Prachi, a controversial Hindutva leader, had also hit out at Shah Rukh on Tuesday, dubbing him a “Pakistani agent” for his comment on Monday, when he turned 50, that there was “extreme intolerance” in the country.