Quicksplained: Everything we know about Kangana slapgate

Kangana Ranaut was slapped on Thursday.

The actor was heading to Delhi just days after winning the Lok Sabha elections from Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi constituency.

Ranaut defeated her nearest Congress rival by over 74,000 votes from Mandi in her home state Himachal Pradesh.

The BJP MP-elect was set to board a plane at Chandigarh airport when she was slapped by a woman Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) constable.

The four-time National Award winner has been a high profile, prominent voice supporting the ruling party on issues such as the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in 2019-20 and farmer protests in 2020-21.

But what happened? Who is the CISF constable? And what was Kangana’s past comment?

Let’s take a closer look:

• According to Indian Express, Kangana was about to board the 3 pm Vistara flight to New Delhi. She was accompanied by members of her family.

• Kangana was slapped allegedly by the woman constable after being frisked in Chandigarh International Airport’s security area.

• The CISF constable, Kulwinder Kaur, hails from a family of farmers, as per NDTV. Kaul was reportedly upset about remarks that Ranaut made about farmers protests in 2020.

• Ranaut previously said that women at the protests are paid Rs 100 or Rs 200.

• NDTV quoted Kaur as saying, “She gave a statement… that farmers are sitting there for Rs 100. Will she go and sit there? My mother was sitting there and protesting when she gave this statement…”

• The CISF has suspended Kaur and launched a departmental inquiry against her. A police complaint has also been lodged against Kaur, as per Indian Express.

• Ranaut took to Twitter to post about the incident. “She hit me in the face and started abusing me. I asked her why she did it and she said she supports the farmer protests,” Ranaut wrote.

• She added, “I am safe but my concern is that terrorism is increasing in Punjab… How do we handle that?”

• Ranaut during the agitation against the three farm laws, allegedly misidentified a woman farmer from Punjab and called her Bilkis Bano, an octogenarian who had made international headlines during the anti-CAA protests earlier in the Delhi neighbourhood of Shaheen Bagh.

• She had then shared a tweet alleging that the ‘Shaheen Bagh dadi’ also joined the farmers’ agitation over the new agriculture laws at various border points of the national capital.

• She retweeted the post with pictures of two elderly women and wrote that the “same Dadi” who featured in Time Magazine was “available in 100 rupees.”

• The actor later deleted the post after Twitter users pointed out that both the women were different.

• As per NDTV, Ranaut in 2021 made news when responding to pop superstar Rihanna’s post on the Indian farmers’ protest entitled: Why aren’t we talking about this?

• “No one is talking about it because they are not farmers, they are terrorists who are trying to divide India, so that China can take over our vulnerable broken nation and make it a Chinese colony much like the USA… Sit down you fool, we are not selling our nation like you dummies,” Ranaut responded.

• Ranaut also deleted this post.

• Ex-Himachal Pradesh chief minister Jairam Thakur told Indian Express, “It is very unfortunate. Nobody has the right to harm anyone. She was heading towards Delhi to attend a party meeting.”

• A senior official at the Chandigarh airport told the newspaper, “The matter is being investigated. And we can’t comment on the issue.”

• National Commission for Women chairperson Rekha Sharma called for serious action and said the panel had taken up the matter with the CISF. “Those responsible for security at airport are themselves breaching security,” she said in a post on X.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2021, nearly 15 months after the protests started, had announced the three farm laws would be withdrawn.

With inputs from agencies