New Delhi: Singer Sonu Nigam asserted that Kannada films should not be dubbed in Hindi nor be released across the country, The Indian Express reported.
The Bollywood singer made the remarks, a few weeks after he was heckled at a concert in Karnataka with a young man in the audience demanding him to perform in Kannada.
The language controversy cropped up again after a video from Karnataka yesterday showed a customer insisting a bank manager speak Kannada triggering an argument between them.
BJP MP Tejasvi Surya shared a video on X saying that employee’s behaviour was ‘simply not acceptable’ and added that employees dealing with local customers must know the local language.
Sonu raised an objection to Tejasvi Surya’s position saying that if language rules in Karnataka are so strict, Kannada films should neither be dubbed in Hindi nor be released across the country.
‘Don’t dub Kannada movies in Hindi! Don’t release Kannada movies pan-India! Do you have the guts to say this to Kannada film stars, Mr. @Tejasvi_Surya, or you are just another language warrior?’ Sonu wrote on X.
Pointing to the south Indian state’s IT sector, the singer wrote in Hindi: ‘Kannada should also be made mandatory in software companies. If American clients conduct business in Karnataka, they should also speak in Kannada. There should be no compromise on this. Alright @Tejasvi_Surya ji? Period’.
Accusing Tejasvi Surya of ‘trying to divide the country on the basis of linguistic and regional differences,’ he asked the BJP leader if he would be able to speak Bhojpuri, Maithili while campaigning in Bihar polls.
Saying that Tejasvi Surya was not having the spirit of nationalism, despite a national party like BJP made him MP for the second time, he added ‘People who hold cheap thoughts like linguism, regionalism, and casteism are like a disease’.