Author and philanthropist Sudha Murthy is at the centre of a controversy after a video of her apparently touching the feet of right-wing leader Sambhaji Bhide has gone viral. Sambhaji Bhide was in the news recently for refusing to speak to a journalist who was not wearing a bindi.
For the incident, he was served a notice by the Maharashtra Women Commission. The video of Sudha Murthy, wife of Infosys co-founder Narayan Murthy, is from Sangli where the writer was at a promotional event for her books. The video went viral with many marvelling at the courteous gesture of the mother-in-law of the UK’s new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
An aide to Sudha Murthy confirmed to PTI that Murthy did not know who Sambhaji Bhide was and bowed out of respect for a senior personA massive controversy began after some accounts emerged claiming that Sudha Murthy was ‘pressurised’ to meet Sambhaji Bhide.
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A Facebook post by Yojana Yadav, the editorial head of Mehta Publishing House, which organised the Sangli event went viral after the video surfaced. In her post, Yojana Yadav claimed that Sudha Murthy met Sambhaji Bhide at the insistence of the police.
Sambhaji Bhide and his supporters arrived at the event without any invitation. But the police requested Murthy to meet Bhide as a large number of supporters of the right-wing leader were waiting outside the auditorium.
“The pressure was so much that a visibly annoyed Sudha Murthy had to discontinue her interaction with her readers and went out to meet Bhide. She was not aware of who Bhide was, so she asked me his age. She bowed before him out of respect accorded to elders,” Yojana told PTI.
“She later told me that Bhide wanted to speak to her for one and a half hours but she told him that she did not have more than one and a half minute for him,” Yadav said adding that she at that time only told Sudha Murthy that the meeting could be used later for propaganda.In September this year, Sudha Murthy was embroiled in a similar controversy after she touched the feet of Promada Devi Wadiyar of Mysuru’s royal family.
