It has somewhat become predictable as to what is bound to happen when a celebrity makes his or her political stand clear or says something minutely political. State award winning Malayalam actor, Vinayakan is the recent target of cyber trolls after the former stated in a television interview that the BJP-RSS cannot grow in Kerala.
A week after the results of the Lok Sabha elections were announced, Kammatipadam actor, Vinayakan gave an interview to Malayalam channel Media One where he said that the people of Kerala should sit back and reflect on the election results. “I don’t know what happened in Kerala. The people of Kerala should definitely think about this situation,” said Vinayakan. The actor was talking about the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) government’s defeat in the elections, after it managed to win only one seat out of the 20 seats in the state, with the rest 19 going to the United Democratic Front (UDF).
By stating that he is happy that the people of Kerala rejected the ideology of the BJP and Sangh Parivar, Vinayakan said, “They (BJP-RSS) cannot do anything in Kerala. We are all smart people. We saw that in the recent elections as well.” The actor also went on to add that he is an “ultimate political man” but that he will never do it as a profession. “My profession is acting. I have a political stand in everything. But I do not do politics for a living,” he added.
Online trolls
Immediately after the interview went online, various Facebook users, many of them spotting profile pictures of PM Narendra Modi or the RSS symbol began abusing and insulting the actor on the comments section of his Facebook posts. Many of the users also hurled casteist and racial slurs at the actor.
“We never knew you were a commie (term used to refer to Communists). From now on wards, we will not watch your movies,” commented a user underneath the teaser of his upcoming movie, “Thottappan”.
Another user said, “Get lost (casteist slur), you’re not the one who should decide whether the people of Kerala rejected BJP or not.”
Majority of the users also resorted to making racist remarks on his colour.
Going by the various profiles that have unleashed a series of abuse against the actor, it was found that these users were right-wing sympathisers as many of them either shared or posted pictures or reports from Right wing pages and parties.
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Actor Vinayakan is not the first from the Malayalam film industry to have voiced out his allegiance to the Left ideologies. Various other artistes such as directors Rajeev Ravi, Aashiq Abu and Amal Neerad are Left supporters. The Left ideology, is prevalent in their movies as well.
Of late, various other actors were targeted on Facebook for voicing out their support for a politician or political party including Tamil actor Vijay Sethupathy and Malayalam actor Biju Menon.
Vijay Sethupathy, in February this year, had made a statement that the stand taken by the Kerala Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan regarding the Sabarimala issue was correct and that he was a big fan of the CM. This had lead to a series of cyber attacks against the actor, again referring to him as the obvious “commie” and many other terms.
Recently, Malayalam actor Biju Menon had attended an election campaign of his friend and BJP candidate from the Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency, Suresh Gopi. Following this, Biju Menon was labelled as a Sanghi by social media users, many of whom said that they will boycott his movies in the future.
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