The Vaccine War' director Vivek Agnihotri accuses Shashi Tharoor of promoting foreign vaccines

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said that he is ‘seeking legal advice’ after he was made aware of film director Vivek Agnihotri’s comment about him. In an interview, Agnihotri said that people holding ‘constitutional positions’ took bribes to promote foreign vaccines over indigenous ones.

Agnihotri’s new film, The VaccineWar tells the story of the Indian scientists who created the the Covaxin Covid vaccine. Tharoor said in a tweet that Agnohtri’s comments are an ‘obvious bid for publicity.’ He wrote in response to a clip from Agnihotri’s video interview with OpIndia, “It is a obviously a cheap bid for publicity, but the concern is that once a lie is repeated often enough, some people will start to believe it. Am seeking legal advice.”

The clip is viral in which Vivek Agnihotri said he has no objection to celebrities taking money and promoting something, but people holding constitutional posts should not do it. And then Vivek Agnihotri named Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. "If a right-wing person promotes Jawaan for some money, that's not a problem. He is just earning some money. Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Virat Kohli promote products that they don't use and will not ever use. That's a business give and take. But people holding Constitutional posts and taking money to promote something against the interest of the country is very concerning," Vivek Agnihotri said.

Chief minister of Delhi, Shashi Tharoor sahab," Vivek Agnihotri said adding that he is not levelling allegations but just telling the truth. "We have shown everything in the movie. Certain things are blurred in the Indian version as we cannot show that, but in the version that was released abroad, it is there," Vivek Agnihotri said.

Agnihotri's upcoming movie is about India's vaccine journey and in the last few days of promotion the director conveyed the message, carried by the film, that there was a big gang of people who were trying to bring foreign vaccine as they believed India could not come up with a vaccine of its own against Covid. “I have focused mostly on India's victory, how India is becoming a great nation, how India has become self-reliant and how India's science is ready to show direction to the world. More than that, I also wanted people to understand who your enemies are. If you want to know who are the enemies of India, who is trying to sell India, then now you will get the answer in the vaccine war," Agnihotri said in an interview.