Many celebrities from the film industry, including bigwigs like Aamir Khan, Rajnikanth, Kamal Haasan, and Aishwarya Rai have applauded the government's decision to demonetize Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes.
However, since the announcement was made on November 8, there have been reports of severe hardship from across the country and even a few deaths. Following this, Kollywood actor Vijay has spoken up about the effects that the sudden decision has had on ordinary people. Stating that this was a brave and good move which should be welcomed, Vijay said that he had no doubts that this would lead to the economy's growth.
However, he expressed his reservations about how this move is playing out on ground. "When the vision is big, it's natural that there are some repercussions. But we have to make sure that these repercussions don't become larger than the vision. I do feel that certain things could have been avoided," the actor said. He went on to cite instances of people going hungry and suffering without medicine, people stranded without money for transportation, the plight of small vendors, malls and theatre owners.
"My heart felt heavy," Vijay said, speaking of the deaths reported due to demonetisation. "About 20% of the country might be rich but the rest of the 80% are also suffering because of the wrongs committed by the 20%," he added.
Vijay emphasised that he was in support of demonetisation but said that he wished the government had planned the execution better and taken precautions to avoid the kind of incidents we see in the news today. "The panic seems to have subsided a bit today but I think people in rural areas, senior citizens are still suffering. I hope the central government will sort out their concerns soon," he concluded.
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Ilayathalapathy Vijay meets the press, and makes bold statements on his POV on #DeMonetisation. Full video here, https://t.co/V5rV7nCyRR
— Sidhu (@sidhuwrites) November 15, 2016
Director Ameer, who has gone after Narendra Modi and Rajinikanth previously too, has spoken up against demonetisation.
Claiming that Modi became the PM only through advertisements, he said the latest move was Modi's way of hiding his failures. He criticised Rajinikanth for applauding the move while keeping quiet about all other atrocities that were going on in the country.
"Rajinikanth says a new India has begun. In old India, your ‘Kabali’ film released. Do you know the rate at which those tickets were sold? Did you sell the tickets at the price decided by the government? What is your salary? How much profit did the film make? Has all this come to the books? How much black money are we talking about? It's atrocious that Rajini who made money by selling a 150 rupee ticket for 2000 rupees is applauding this move," Ameer said.
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