In a series of tweets, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that three Hindu movie garnering Rs 120 crore on one day had been a factual statement and the media had misconstrued his comment.

File picture of Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad (PTI Photo)

New Delhi: After receiving backlash for dismissing the state of the economy by comparing it to box office collections, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday withdrew his comments.

“I was also told that on October 2, which is observed as one of the national holidays, three Hindi movies garnered Rs. 120 crore business on that day. Unless the economy is sound in the country how can only three movies collected so much business in a single day?” Prasad had said on Saturday drawing the ire of several critics including Congress’ Jairam Ramesh.

A day later, he took to Twitter to seemingly explain his comment. “My comments made yesterday in Mumbai about 3 films making 120 Cr in a single day- the highest ever, was a factually correct statement,” he said in the first of a series of tweets.

Prasad then goes onto say that he is proud of the film industry which provides employment to lakhs of people. He then blames the media for “twisting” the comment out of context.

“Entire video of my media interaction is available on social media. Yet I regret to note that one party of my statement has been completely twisted out of context. Being a sensitive person I withdraw this comment,” he concluded.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had taken a jibe at Ravi Shankar Prasad over his comment linking Indian economy’s health with box office colleciton of Bollywood films by calling it “Pra-sad index”.

Source From : news18.com