Vijay Deverakonda advocates 'dictatorship' in old interview, faces flak over comments

Actor Vijay Deverakonda recently shared his opinion on democracy and dictatorship in an interview to Film Companion and that "not everyone should be allowed to vote." His statement created quite an uproar on Twitter with people calling him out for his stance. The clip was from a previous interview which had been re-upped recently.

The original interview was published on 1 September, but a deleted snippet was posted on Film Companion South's YouTube page on 8 October.

When the interviewer asked Deverakonda if he was interested in politics and would join a party a few years down the line, the actor responded that “I don’t have the patience for politics. The political system itself in some way is not making sense. As in, how we go about the elections is not making sense in some way. I don’t even think everyone should be allowed to vote.”

Deverakonda further explained his assertion with an analogy of how air passengers don’t vote to decide who gets to fly a plane because there's an efficient agency to decide who's competent and suggests that therefore, a universal franchise is unnecessary.

"Why we're having money and cheap liquor swing a vote, is ridiculous. I'm not saying that rich people should vote. I don't even think rich people should vote. I think the middle class, who have the most at stake, people who are educated and won't get swung by little money...I don't even think everyone should be allowed to vote because they don't know who they're voting for and why they're voting for," he argues.

"I would like to be a dictator if at all. I think that's the way to go. That's the way you can make a change. ‘Just shut up...I’m having good intentions’ I think somewhere dictatorship is the way to go but you need to have a good guy."

Read a few reactions here

"You know what will fix this country? A dictator."

If you belong to a middle class upper caste family, you must have heard this line being uttered often.

You know why they say it so confidently?

Because the basic assumption is that this dictator is *always* on their side. https://t.co/NpmhIIyxql

— Meghnad 🔗 (@Memeghnad) October 10, 2020

#VijayDeverakonda says only the middle class should be allowed to vote because they "have the most at stake". Does he genuinely believe this or does he have a movie coming up that would benefit from some negative publicity? #VijayDevarakonda https://t.co/TP18eULMWo

— Anna MM Vetticad (@annavetticad) October 10, 2020

Every few months dictatorship fans would crawl out of the woodwork asking for total authoritarian rule. Most of these people are already sitting on enormous privilege and have ready platforms given to them to say all sorts of nonsense.

— Rituparna Chatterjee (@MasalaBai) October 10, 2020

And this assumption that the middle class is the most righteous, most qualified to decide for everyone including the poor

— Vasudha Venugopal (@vasudha_ET) October 10, 2020

That Vijay Deverakonda video explains so much about his reasons to play Arjun Reddy. "You don't know what's good for you" - dictator in the sheets, dictator in the streets.

— Pooja 🌈 (@Pooja_Chaudhuri) October 10, 2020

I suggest a haircut to release some pressure on the khopdi 🙄 https://t.co/iohmBPfnjd

— Gulshan Devaiah (@gulshandevaiah) October 10, 2020

Watch the video here