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Senior Congress leader and former Tamil Nadu Congress president KS Alagiri stirred controversy on Thursday, September 18, after saying that actor and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Kangana Ranaut should be slapped if she visits Tamil Nadu. The actor, however, remarked Kangana brushed off, saying she was “unbothered.”
Alagiri said his comments came in response to agricultural workers who were upset with Ranaut’s past remarks about women farmers.
“Yesterday, 10–15 agriculturists came to me and said that Kangana Ranaut once told that women working in agriculture could be lured anywhere with Rs 100. I was shocked. Why should a sitting MP insult rural women who toil in the fields?” Alagiri said.
Kangana Ranaut had shared a post during the 2020–21 farmers’ protests in which she allegedly misidentified a woman farmer from Punjab and claimed she was the same “Bilkis Bano” of Shaheen Bagh fame, and suggested the woman was “available for Rs 100.”
Invoking the June 2024 incident in which a Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) officer slapped Ranaut at Chandigarh airport, he added, “A few months ago, when she went to an airport, a lady police officer slapped her, saying she abuses everyone wherever she goes. I told the agricultural workers that if she comes to our area, they should do the same thing. Only then will she correct her mistake.”
Kangana, who represents Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi constituency in the Lok Sabha, dismissed Alagiri’s remarks.
“We can go wherever we want. No one can stop anyone. If there are people who hate me, there are more who love me,” she said.
She added that she has always received love from Tamil Nadu, pointing out that even Opposition MPs once called her “Thalaivii” after her portrayal of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa in the biopic Thalaivii.
The Chandigarh airport incident took place in June 2024, when CISF officer Kulwinder Kaur slapped Ranaut over her remarks about the farmers’ protest against the now-repealed farm laws. The officer was later suspended.