Known for putting his foot in his mouth, filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma has bitten more than he can chew this time around, through his questionable tweet about Bollywood actress and former porn star Sunny leone put out on International Women’s Day.
Ever since he put out a salacious tweet on Wednesday saying, “I wish all the women in the world give men as much happiness as Sunny leone gives.” RGV has come in for a severe flak on Twitter and other media forums from feminists, activists, organisations like Ranaragini, the women’s wing of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti and political parties like Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party.
No wonder that less than 24 hours after he kicked up the massive controversy, RGV ate crow and tendered an apology for his insensitive comment on Sunny leone, by tweeting on Thursday evening: “Was just expressing my feelings, but I apologise to all who were offended due to my unintended insensitive tweets in context of women’s day.” He, however qualified his apology by tweeting: “My apology is only to those who genuinely got offended and not to those who ranted for publicity and threatened to take law into their hands.”
However, by then RGV had burnt his boat. For, RGV faces one complaint lodged against him by women activist Pratiksha Korgaonkar with Goa’s Maupsa police station and a warning from Maharashtra’s senior NCP functionary Jitendra Awhad who threatened to take the law in his own hands.
On his part, RGV went on to defend himself by tweeting: “The negative noise towards my tweet on @Sunnyleone arises from ultimate hypocrisy. She has more honesty and more self respect than any woman.”
Among the first to take on RGV, Awhad tweeted: “@RGVzoomin apologies or face the consequences we dnt mind taking law in hand” RGV, however, countered by saying — “Great @PawarSpeaks shud
kick u out for threatening to take law into hands in our sovereign democratic country ..u r a disgrace to his ideals”.
Varma put out another tweet saying: “f u don’t apologise to threat of taking law into ur own hands, will formally register complaint, so let me know . Please note @PawarSpeaks.” Awhad retaliated by saying: “plz go ahead and do it @RGVzoomin”.
In a related development, woman activist Vishaka Mhambrey went ahead and lodged a complaint against RGV with Mapusa police station in Goa and sought to get his Twitter account blocked.
Not to be outdone, RGV hit back tweeting: “Filing counter against OverActivist wid 212 followers which wud b her family n friends, for disrespecting 18 lakh followers of @Sunnyleone,” he tweeted indicating that he would be filing a cross complaint.
In a statement issued on Thursday evening, Goa State Organiser of Ranaragini
Pratiksha Korgaonkar stated: “In today’s ‘tweet’ Varma has said that complainant Vishakha Mhambre, who has only 212 followers, is insulting Sunny leone who has 18 lakh followers. Thus, once again he exhibited his (im) morality. Does the number of followers indicate character of any womanIJ Then, Sunny leone holds the top position on ‘Google’ search for 5 consecutive yearsIJ Does Ram Gopal Varma therefore, think that leone was the most virtuous woman in IndiaIJ”
Many in the film industry believe that he has intentionally kicked up the controversy ahead of the release of his film “Sarkar 3” starring Amitabh Bachchan, Ronit Roy, Jackie Shroff and Manoj Bajpayee but things have gone horribly wrong for RGV.
