Comedian Kunal Kamra has landed himself in new controversy after he allegedly referred to Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde as a “traitor.”
The Mumbai police on Monday registered an FIR against the stand-up comedian for allegedly making defamatory remarks against Shinde during a show, an official said in a report on PTI.
This comes after Rahul Kanal, a leader from Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction, filed a formal complaint against Kamra at Khar Police Station. The complaint alleges that derogatory remarks were made against Shinde, which the party members deemed ‘offensive’.
Based on the complaint, a First Information Report (FIR) was registered in the early hours of Monday against Kamra under various Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) actions, including 353(1)(b) (statements conducing to public mischief) and 356(2) (defamation), an official from MIDC police station said.
During his performance at the Habitat Comedy Club in Mumbai, Kamra touched on the topic of the political division in Maharashtra. “Shiv Sena first came out of the BJP, then Shiv Sena came out of Shiv Sena. NCP came out of NCP, they gave nine buttons to one voter… everyone got confused,” Kamra said in the video. He also sang a parody inspired by the Bollywood film Dil To Pagal Hai, singing: “Meri nazar se tum dekho to gaddar nazar wo aaye. Haaye (If you see from my perspective, he looks like a traitor).”
Many have since taken offence and claimed that he labelled the politician as “gaddar” (traitor) even though he did not particularly name Shinde.
Shiv Sena workers reportedly visited the venue where the comedy show was filmed and vandalised the property.
Sena (UBT) MLA Aaditya Thackeray, however, slammed the vandalism at the show venue, calling it a “cowardly” act.
In a post on X, Thackeray said, “Mindhe’s coward gang breaks the comedy show stage where comedian @kunalkamra88 put out a song on eknath mindhe, which was 100 per cent true. Only an insecure coward would react to a song by someone.”
