Mersal row: BJP leader H Raja steps up attack on ‘Joseph’ Vijay, makes his voter ID card public

BJP leader H Raja reveals Mersal star Vijay’s voter ID card

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national secretary H Raja doubled down on his attack against Tamil superstar Vijay, citing his Christian roots. He even shared the copy of the actor’s voter ID card, which spells his full name, Joseph Vijay. The senior BJP leader captioned it, “Truth is bitter.”

Citing Vijay’s religion, Raja has been accusing the Tamil superstar of running a “hatred campaign” against the Narendra Modi government. While the controversy first began over ‘Mersal’ discussing the Centre’s pet projects like Goods and Service Tax (GST) and Digital India, it was soon turned into a communal issue by Raja.

“Vijay is a practising Christian, he should have said build hospitals before Churches, instead he says build hospitals before temples. It is like provoking Hindus,” Raja told Behindwoods. The BJP leader refused to relent on his rhetoric even when he was reminded that Vijay’s character in ‘Mersal’ was Hindu and he was just playing the role that was written by director Atlee.

He even went on to suggest that there was some sort of conspiracy in the showbiz against Hindus.

Truth is bitter pic.twitter.com/woFdxOntRn

— H Raja (@HRajaBJP) October 22, 2017

Reacting to the controversy surrounding Vijay’s Christian name, the actor’s father SA Chandrasekar said he found the issue very “silly”. He also added that the country belonged to people of all religions.

“I’m a Christian and my wife is a Hindu. When I filled the school application for Vijay, I wrote his nationality as Indian, religion- Indian and cast- Indian. I did not want to stamp a religious identity on my son’s back when he was four-years-old. I wanted him to be first a human being,” Chandrasekar told News18.