When tweets landed actors in soup

Actor Kamal Haasan seems to have landed himself in a new legal trouble, with his tweets on the dramatic political developments during the Tamil Nadu assembly floor test. His strongly-worded tweets mocking MLAs seem to have irked the members of the Indian National League Party, who, reportedly, filed a police complaint against the actor for allegedly provoking general public against elected representatives.

The actor had been voicing his opinion on social media on political developments in Tamil Nadu. On Saturday, after the new Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami won the trust vote, the actor took to Twitter mocking MLAs for their behaviour in the state assembly. He tweeted: "There you go. Seems like we have another CM. Jai de-mockcrazy." In the next tweet, he asked people to receive their respective MLAs 'with the respect they deserve back home'.

Prior to this, Haasan shared a string of tweets during the nationwide debate on banning jallikattu, expressing his support to keeping the tradition of the bull sport in the state alive. In one tweet, he took on PETA, daring them to ban bull riding rodeos in 'Trump's USA'. He tweeted: “PETA go ban bull riding rodeos in Mr. Trump's U.S. You're not qualified to tackle our bulls. Empires have been made to quit India."

Earlier, tweeting about the actor's recent proactive participation in the functioning of democracy, an award-winning film critic Baradwaj Rangan said: “2.0 isn’t just the name of a Rajinikanth movie. It’s also the name of Kamal’s new avatar. Sarcastic. Witty. Entertaining. He’s Cho 2.0.”

However, this is not the first time that an Indian actor is facing the heat because of his tweets. Earlier last year, Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan faced a lawsuit for his tweet suggesting that he would rather have an affair with the Pope than any of his female co-stars.

The actor was sent a legal notice by former vice-chairman of Maharashtra Minority Commission, Abraham Mathai. The latter accused the actor of hurting sentiments of Christian community by making a reference to 'Pope' in a tweet allegedly directed at actor Kangana Ranaut, for her remarks on a 'silly ex' giving her trouble.

In September last year, comedian Kapil Sharma triggered a political storm when he turned to the social media platform with a tweet accusing a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation official of demanding bribe. In his next tweet, Sharma tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking him if these were his promised 'achhe din'. His tweet got an immediate response from Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who asked the Corporation to initiate action. 

By the end of the day, Sharma's tweet went viral with a section of Twitterati using it as an opportunity to criticise the civic body, while some others trolled the comedian over his comments. By this time, the situation seemed to have gone out of control for Sharma as the BMC said that Sharma was issued a stop-work notice by the civic body for unauthorised extension of a building he owns in Andheri. The BMC also announced its tough stand against corruption and requested Sharma to reveal the name of the official who demanded bribe.