New Delhi: Actor-turned-politician Suresh Gopi landed in a controversy after a video, showing him distributing money and people touching his feet to seek blessings, went viral on social media platforms.
According to a Hindu custom, the ancient practice of ‘Vishu Kaineettam' entails the distribution of a small amount of money to children, women and the elderly with a blessing that the wealth would multiply. This custom is practised around the harvest festival Vishu, that falls on April 15 this year.
In the viral video, Gopi, whose tenure as Rajya Sabha MP would end later this month, could be seen sitting in a car distributing money and the people, including women, touching his feet accepting their 'kaineettam'. He had organised a mass ‘Vishu Kaineettam' in Thrissur earlier this week.
He drew severe flak from netizens who opined that it was not appropriate for Gopi to allow people, especially women, to touch his feet.
However, there are many who came put in support of the actor saying touching the feet after accepting the 'kaineettam' is also a part of the Hindu customs.
Blaming his critics for failing to find the good intention behind the act, Gopi termed the criticism as ‘intolerance’ and said that he was only distributing 'kaineettam' to the elderly and children, and did nothing to seek votes.
As the issue snowballed into a controversy, the organisers of an event, held in Thiruvananthapuram in which the actor distributed 'kaineettam' to the BJP workers on Wednesday, requested them not to touch Gopi's feet after accepting the money.
Meanwhile, the 'kaineettaam' issue stoked another row when he gave money to the Melsanthi (chief priest) of Vadakkumnathan Temple to be distributed to devotees on Vishu.
Though the BJP said that there was nothing wrong for the temple priests to accept money from individuals to distribute ‘kaineettam’ to devotees on the occasion of Vishu, the local leaders of ruling CPI(M) voiced their dissent.
Following that, the Cochin Devaswom Board, the organisation which manages the Vadakkumnathan shrine, issued an order banning priests under its temples from accepting money from anyone outside to distribute as ‘kaineettam’.
However, the Devaswom Board order did not have any mention about the actor's name, according to a report by news agency PTI.
As a mark of protest, the district BJP unit here distributed one rupee currency to people in front of the temple.