Emraan Hashmi was at his witty best while addressing a press conference with Shiv Sena’s Aditya Thackeray in Mumbai on Friday. The occasion was to announce the date for the release of Emraan’s next release, Cheat India, which has been preponed to avoid a clash with Thackeray.
Also present in the press conference at Marriott hotel were Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut. While responding to a reporter’s question, Emraan named ‘Mallya and Modi’ as two of the biggest cheaters in India along with his character, Rakesh Singh, in Cheat India. But before anyone could mistake Modi for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Emraan quickly clarified that he meant ‘Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi.’
He said, “Two have already been named, Mallya and Modi….Nirav Modi.” This left everyone on stage including Raut and Thackeray in splits. The room was soon filled with laughter.
Thackeray and Raut could not hold their laughter because their party, the Shiv Sena has been extremely critical of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Raut had recently justified his party’s attack against PM Modi and the BJP on the Rafale scam. He had said that his party had no regrets on slamming the BJP on the Rafale fighter jet deal while remaining a part of the National Democratic Alliance.
Last month, Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray had used the Chowkidar Chor hai (Watchman is thief) jibe to attack PM Modi. Addressing a rally in Maharashtra, he had said, “In one of the state tours, a farmer showed me a pest-infested lime tree. The lime tree is actually used to make pesticides but this was a plant that was infested with pests. The farmer told me that for the first time in his lifetime, he had seen a lime tree getting infested, which they have been using to make pesticides. I had told him that now, days have changed. Security guards have become thieves.”
Cheat India starring Emraan exposes the country’s corrupt education system. In the film, Emraan plays the character of one Rakesh Singh, a smooth-talking crook with words of wisdom, who is admired by parents and needy students. The film is produced by Bhushan Kumar’s T-Series, Tanuj Garg and Atul Kasbekar’s Ellipsis Entertainment and Parveen Hashmi’s Emraan Hashmi Films.