As a form of protest against the vandalism on Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmavati sets in Jaipur at the hands of some members of the Rajput community, Sushant Singh Rajput dropped his last name on Twitter for a day. The actor was met by much flak for the move by trolls on the site who claim that he, in fact, has shamed the community by dissociating with it. Says the actor, “I decided to drop ‘Rajput’ from my name to make my stance on this issue very clear. I want to say that these self-proclaimed representatives of the community do not represent everyone with that surname. If they have a problem with something, there are other ways to express it, but violence is definitely not the solution, and that too on a mere speculation.”
Sushant and Sanjay Bhansali have been close from the time Sushant aspired to be in the movies. He had met SLB at the outset and the filmmaker had assured him that he would keep him in mind for future roles. And he did. SLB did offer Ram-Leela to Sushant, but at that time, Sushant was committed to Shekhar Kapoor’s Paani, which ultimately never got made. Sushant, who was fielding trolls on Monday, added, “These paid trolls are used to shut voices across all sectors on digital platforms. They may have a certain effect in shaping public opinion because people generally think that these platforms are a true representation of general consensus. But the truth is, the entire digital area is mere a seven per cent of what people generally think and talk about. People around must know this.”
