Returning Akademi awards politically motivated, says Kirron Kher

New Delhi, Oct 15: Actor and BJP MP Kirron Kher on Thursday termed the act of authors returning Sahitya Akademi awards as "politically motivated".

"I think the intellectuals who are giving up their awards are completely politically motivated, it's quite obvious. So many people died in 1984 in Delhi, around 3,000 Sikhs. But no one gave back the award that time," Kher said.

"They are now screaming about Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP and RSS, so they are obviously politically motivated. It's so obvious you know. Rub the surface and the truth comes out," she said while claiming that the "truth" will come out soon.

The MP was here to inaugurate an exhibition on sarees organised by the Delhi Crafts Council. On Wednesday, Kher's husband and actor Anupam Kher had too said that the writers were "politically motivated" to embarrass the Prime Minister.

Expressing remorse over the the Dadri lynching incident, the actor said, "It's not that the first time such an incident is happening in India. Very sad incidents like what happened in Dadri has been happening over the years in India.

"It's not as if its happening in past 18 months only, so I find the whole thing very politically motivated and they are just getting a lot of space which they were not getting for a long time," Kher added.

Claiming that the authors had enjoyed patronage from the previous Congress government, she said, "I have seen a lot of these 'jholawalas' sitting around in Delhi and pretending to be more artistic than they actually were. I think they have got used to a lot of favours and a lot of things been done by the Congress government," she said.

Alleging that the authors remained silent during incidents like Bhopal gas tragedy, Kher said, "They should have thought about it when so many other people were killed and died.

So many things happened like the Bhopal Gas Tragedy where (the then CEO of Union Carbide Corporation - Warren) Anderson was allowed to flee. Arjun Singh's book says it was former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who made him flee."

At least 29 authors including Nayantara Sahgal and Ashok Vajpeyi have decided to return their Akademi awards and five writers have stepped down from official positions of the literary body, which in turn has convened an emergency meeting on October 23 to discuss the developments.

PTI