A politician from India’s ruling party, the BJP, Suraj Pal Amu created quite a controversy when he announced a Rs 10 crore ($2 million) bounty for beheading Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone and director Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The politician resigned on Wednesday from his position of party’s head of media unit for Haryana state.
His resignation came just days after the party asked him to explain his controversial remarks.
Mr Amu belongs to a community that is offended by the purported portrayal of a Hindu queen in the upcoming Bollywood movie ‘Padmavati’- a character played by Padukone. In his resignation sent to Haryana’s BJP state chief, he expressed his displeasure at the state chief minister not meeting him and other representatives of his community on Tuesday.
The Rajput community has been up in arms against the movie alleging distortion on of history.
Though the police have registered a case against him after he made a statement offering a bounty on heads of Padukone and Bhansali, Amu said he has no regrets about making those remarks and vowed not to allow the movie to be released.
The Chief Ministers of three BJP-ruled states-Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh-have said they will not allow the movie to release even if it is cleared by the censor board.
On Tuesday, India’s top court rejected a petition demanding a ban on the movie’s release and asked political leaders not to pre-judge the decision of the film certification board which is yet to decide the movie’s fate.
