Gadkari faces flak for sharing ad featuring Akshay with 'problematic' dowry undertones

New Delhi, Sep 12: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari shared an ad campaign on road safety which featured Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar. The minister has, however, been under fire and the advertisement has been receiving a lot of flak online as critics find it 'problematic' with undertones of dowry.

The video opens with a marriage scene, where a father and his daughter can be seen crying at the bride's farewell.

Akshay Kumar, playing a policeman, taunts the father for sending the newly married couple in a car that has just two airbags. While the video aims to create awareness on the road safety measure, many alleged that the advertisement was promoting the practice of dowry, a punishable offense in India.

"Make life safer by travelling in a vehicle with 6 airbags," Nitin Gadkari wrote while sharing the video.

Responding to the tweet, Shiv Sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi called the creative 'problematic' as it ends up "promoting the evil and criminal act of dowry."

"This is such a problematic advertisement. Who passes such creatives? Is the government spending money to promote the safety aspect of a car or promoting the evil& criminal act of dowry through this ad?," tweeted the Sena leader.

National spokesperson of TMC, Saket Gokhale too voiced a similar opinion calling the advertisement 'disgusting' as it officially promoted dowry.'

The death of former chairman of Tata Sons Cyrus Mistry in a road accident in Maharashtra has triggered a debate on road safety issues such as check on over-speeding, wearing of seat belts for rear passengers and inconsistent road designs.