Mumbai: Sushant Singh Rajput’s untimely demise has flared up nepotism debate in the Hindi film industry, again. The actor’s suicide has prompted the shocked Bollywood to introspect on why outsiders find it so hard to get a foothold into an industry which many directors and actors say is ruled by its own people.
This has seen an immediate impact on the social media handles of celebrities across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Enraged netizens have been un-following actors and filmmakers, who are accused of promoting nepotism in the industry. Karan Johar, who was primarily targeted and severely trolled for the same, has seen quite a downfall in the number of followers of Instagram. At present, he has 10.7 million followers which reportedly fell from 11 million.
Alia Bhatt’s profile has also registered a reduction of more than 2 lac followers on the photo-sharing app in a single day. On June 15, the actress had close to 48.8 million followers, however, at the time of writing this report, they have reduced to 48 million.
However, actor Kangana Ranaut saw an upward trend in her Instagram followers, from about 2 million her followers rose to 3.9 million and counting. While Karan, Alia and Sonam Kapoor among others were called out for being a part of the “privileged groups” and “camps” in the industry, Kangana was lauded for slamming Bollywood left, right and center.
Rajput was found dead in his Bandra apartment on Sunday. He was 34. A complete outsider who studied to be an engineer, the Patna-born actor rose through the ranks from a background dancer to a television star and finally got his Bollywood debut with Kai Po Che!, which released only seven years ago. The actor had his fair share of success in films like M S Dhoni: The Untold Story and Chhichhore.