Video Editor: Mohd. Irshad Alam
A video of Deep Sidhu has gone viral on social media after the Punjabi celebrity has been embroiled in a controversy for allegedly instigating farmers to break away from the designated route of the tractor rally, and vandalising the Red Fort on Tuesday, 26 January.
In the 1.05 minute clip that’s being widely shared, Sidhu can be seen being confronted by a group of farmers while he was making a video sitting on a tractor. Sidhu then jumps off the tractor and is chased by the farmers, as they hurl abuses at him.
The Controversy Surrounding Sidhu
Sidhu went viral on social media in November last year, after a video of him marching towards Delhi and lecturing a Haryana police officer in English on why farmers are protesting surfaced on the internet.
While he initially emerged as an important voice of the agitation against the Narendra Modi government's farm laws, the farmers’ leaders are now accusing him of being a ‘BJP man’ who was deliberately planted to derail the movement.
The tides turned against Sidhu after he claimed responsibility for hoisting the Nishan Sahib at the iconic Red Fort during the Tractor Rally on 26 January. The vandalism that is being condemned by the farm leaders and opposition alike has given the Centre more ammunition for crackdown on the protesters.
Amid the backlash, Sidhu, in a Facebook live video, claimed that he and a group of protesting farmers hoisted the Kisan Mazdoor Ekta’s flag and the Nishan Sahib at the Red Fort and said that the Indian national flag was not removed from the flagpole.
Ties with the BJP
Sidhu is believed to be close to actor and now BJP MP from Gurdaspur Sunny Deol, a proximity that the former has recently denied.
Sunny Deol took to Twitter to claim that he condemned the flag hoisting in Red Fort and that his family had no ties with Sidhu.
However, while Sidhu campaigned for Sunny Deol in the 2019 elections, Dharmendra also played a cameo in his hit film ‘Jora 10 Numbaria’.
Pictures of Sidhu with PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah are also being widely shared by people on social media to allege that he was indeed ‘planted’ by the BJP to derail the movement.
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