Shah Rukh Khan talented patriot, says Union telecom minister

NEW DELHI: Union telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has praised Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan as a "proud Indian with extraordinary talent", distancing himself and his party from acerbic comments against the actor by party general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya and Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath.

"Shah Rukh Khan’s late father was also a freedom fighter of this country," Prasad told ET, following several BJP leaders, including Venkaiah Naidu, in distancing from a series of tweets made by Vijayvargiya on Tuesday, which he retracted a day later. Portraying BJP as an inclusive party, Prasad said that debate, discussion and diversity were a part of India’s heritage.

"That’s how India has grown, our government is committed to this rich tradition of India." Prasad also condemned the Dadri killing and killing of intellectuals in Karnataka.

Distancing the national government from these events he said: "These are state issues and the states failed. For us, a dissenting view is always welcome."

While choosing not to comment on RBI governor Raghuram Rajan’s remarks over respecting dissent and incorporating dissent and public debate in policy-making, Prasad lashed out at intellectuals who have been critical of BJP. He said that historian Irfan Habib’s statement equating RSS with terrorist organisation ISIS "is not only condemnable but also atrocious. RSS is a nationalist organisation and this shows the real mindset of Irfan Habib, under whose leadership alternative views in historiography have been systematically crushed".