Shatrughan Sinha has defended daughter Sonakshi Sinha from a verbal attack from fellow actor Mukesh Khanna. After Khanna questioned Sonakshi’s upbringing, the actor herself fired back at him. Now, Shatrughan has also questioned his jibe and slammed him for the statement.
Shatrughan Sinha slams Mukesh Khanna
In an interview, Mukesh Khanna had chided Sonakshi Sinha over an old appearance on Kaun Banega Crorepati, in which she could not answer a question about the Ramayana, following which Sonakshi responded to him in an open letter. Now, Shatrughan Sinha has also slammed Mukesh Khanna.
Speaking with Bollywood Hungama, he said, “I believe someone has a problem with Sonakshi not answering a question on the Ramayana. Firstly what qualifies this person to be an expert on all things to do with the Ramayana? And who has appointed him the guardian of the Hindu religion?”
The veteran actor then defended daughter Sonakshi and added that merely not answering a question on the Ramayana does not ‘disqualify her from being a good Hindu’. He said, “I am very proud of all my three children. Sonakshi became a star on her own. I never had to launch her career. She is a daughter any father would be proud to have. Not answering a question on the Ramayana doesn’t disqualify Sonakshi from being a good Hindu. She doesn’t need a certificate of approval from anyone.”
Mukesh Khanna vs Sonakshi Sinha
After Mukesh Khanna had taken a jibe at Sonakshi for not getting a question on Lord Hanuman from Ramayana right on KBC, connecting it to her upbringing as a Hindu, the actor wrote an open letter to him. “I recently read a statement you made saying that it’s my father’s fault I did not correctly answer a question about the Ramayana on a show I attended many years back. Firstly, let me remind you there were two women on the hot seat that day who did not know the answer to the same question, but you chose to keep taking my name, and only my name, for reasons which are quite obvious,” she wrote.
“Yes, I may have blanked out that day, a human tendency, and forgotten who the Sanjeevani Booti was brought for, but clearly, you have also forgotten some of the lessons of forgive and forget taught by Lord Rama himself. If Lord Rama can forgive Manthara, if he can forgive Kaikeyi, if he can even forgive Ravan after the great battle was done, surely you can let go of this extremely small thing in comparison. Not that I need your forgiveness. But yes, I definitely need you to forget and stop bringing up the same incident time and again to be back in the news at the expense of me and my family.”
In response, Mukesh Khanna told News9 that he was surprised she took ‘so long’ to respond, but doubled down on his statement from earlier. He added, “My intention was to react to today’s generation, which is called ‘Gen-Z’ by elders, which has become slaves to today’s Google world and mobile phones. Their knowledge is limited to Wikipedia and social interactions on YouTube. And here, I had a hi-fi case before me of her, which I could use to teach others – fathers, sons, daughters.”
On the work front, Sonakshi will be next seen in Nikita Roy and The Book of Darkness.
