BENGALURU: Actor Prakash Raj has issued a defamation notice against Mysuru-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha for 'defamatory and derogatory' remarks made against him by the latter in social media posts and television interviews.
Addressing a press meet here on Thursday, he said, "I have sent a legal notice to Pratap Simha for the way he has trolled me. I am asking him to answer my notice legally. If he doesn't, I will take a criminal action against him."
Raj said that the trolling began after he questioned Prime Minister Modi's silence and called him a bigger actor than him.
The remarks made by the BJP MP - that he was running after a dancer when his son died - was meant to instigate people against him and "made my personal life very disturbing. When I ask questions about politics, you cannot troll a person based on speculative stories," he said.
If an unconditional apology is not tendered by the MP, "my client will be constrained to initiate appropriate proceedings, both civil and criminal, including claiming monetary damages which is in the process of contemplation," the notice read.
Commenting on troll vandalism in the country, he said that encouragement provided to online trolls by political parties is emboldening them to issue threats openly. "As a citizen of my country, I have to make my move against it," he said. "Though I should have started questioning earlier, I realised it was necessary after death came to my doorstep," he said referring to the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh.
He said that he had no intentions to enter politics now. "First I want to be an honest questioning citizen of the country. I have no ideas of entering politics now," he said.