Outrage over Vijay Deverakonda’s kiss with Rashmika Mandanna in \'Dear Comrade\'

Mumbai: The first promotional clip of Vijay Deverakonda’s Dear Comrade has created quite a stir, thanks to the passionate kiss that the actor shares on the screen with his leading lady Rashmika Mandanna. The Twitterati has launched into a rant calling Deverakonda Telugu cinema’s Emraan Hashmi and questioning the heroine’s moral values, asking her why she needs to indulge in intimate acts on the screen. While Vijay chooses not to react to what he feels is archaic cultural policing by idle social-media users, he is disturbed about the fact that his leading lady is being targeted with such harsh censure.

A source close to Vijay says, “He never expected the Twitterati to go into a rant over a harmless kiss. While he is used to raising hackles and eyebrows with his unorthodox roles and attitude, Vijay is appalled that his co-star is being targeted with unflattering comments.

Dear Comrade has several moments of intimacy between Vijay and Rashmika. Now he is in two minds as to how to deal with the intimacy quotient in Dear Comrade because he doesn’t want his leading lady to be targeted.” Many top actors, like Mahesh Babu, Pawan Kalyan, and Ram Charan choose not to do intimate scenes with their co-stars. This makes the stars who do intimate scenes easy targets for the Telugu audience. Vijay has a rather simple question for the audience. “Should a kiss even be the reason for debate and discussion in a country plagued with much bigger problems?,” he asks.