Anwesha Dash, Pune
Netizens slammed well-known pan-Indian film star Prakash Raj for posting an animated picture on Twitter with the caption “first picture” from the moon, accusing him of mocking India’s lunar expedition.
Prakash Raj, the infamous villain from the “Dabangg” and “Singham” films, is highly recognised for both his filmography and his political posts on social media. He is alleged to have disparaged India’s Chandrayan-3 lunar mission in one of his most recent tweets that garnered media attention. He posted a caricature of a lungi-clad, dark-skinned Indian dude. using the caption “first picture from the moon” with the hashtag Vikram Lander.
Netizens did not find the tweet funny. On the contrary, a lot of people lambasted him for mocking this ambitious lunar expedition. One of the replies on his tweet were that, “There is a difference between hating someone and hating your country. So sad to see this state of yours!”.
After three days, the Vikram Lander is poised to make an attempt at a gentle landing on the uncharted south pole of the moon. Therefore, Prakash Raj is not at all helped by the timing of this tweet on an occasion for which everyone is waiting with eagerness. Instead, the actor has received a barrage of hate mail telling him to put his “political agenda” on hold.
Mr. Raj is a member of the “Bharat Rashtra Samithi” political party in Telangana. Apart from that, he is also well known as a staunch critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party. The actor is also said to be left aligning in politics which is why netizens state that he is wishing the failure of Chandrayan-3. People also went on to compare his tweet with an elitist and racist New York Times cartoon on India’s Mars mission.
After the last mission’s failure, the entire nation anticipates and prays for a successful landing on the south pole of the moon. Consequently, the public did not respond kindly to a tweet like this.