Congress politician Supriya Shrinate criticised online trolls for their relentless targeting of Deepika Padukone regarding her remarks about her open relationship with Ranveer Singh on Koffee With Karan Season 8.

Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh appeared on Koffee with Karan Season 8.

Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone recently found herself targeted by brutal online trolling after she openly discussed her past open relationship with Ranveer Singh prior to their marriage on a recent episode of Koffee With Karan Season 8. Despite Deepika’s decision to remain silent in the face of this cyberbullying, a number of prominent figures have stepped up to support her, with the most recent being Congress politician Supriya Shrinate.

Taking to her Instagram account, Supriya defended Deepika against the trolls, emphasising Deepika’s extraordinary achievements. She wrote, “What have we become? A couple sits together on a talk show and talks about their relationship, their marriage, their courtship. A young woman, who is a super achiever talks about her struggles with mental health – she actually emboldens many more to deal with this unspoken demon. A young man, no mean achiever either, talks about how he stood by her when she went through the trauma.”

In her post, Supriya called out the trolls for engaging in character assassination of Deepika. She wrote, “Instead of applauding their courage to speak about issues that we brush under the carpet as a society – they, especially the woman has become the subject of vicious trolling, character assassination and vulgar memes. Why can’t people handle reality, why do raw human emotions make them uncomfortable, why does everything have to be candy flossed, why have people become this bitter, so full of hate, so inhumane and so judgmental? But the truth is that the hate which is peddled, makes no difference to people it’s directed towards. Because hate and abuse comes from anonymous, insignificant people unhappy and angry with their own lives and anxiety.

She added, “These same petty trolls will be the first to hound her for a selfie were they ever to cross paths – these folks actually need affection and I pray they find love too! Because love just doesn’t make your world go round, it makes you a better human being ❤️And like she said don’t make the mistake of thinking she is stoppable!”

Earlier, comedian/actor and Emmy award nominee Vir Das also voiced his support for Deepika, using humour to mock the trolls attacking her. He wrote, “Moment of silence for all the men who are upset that a Bollywood star way out of their league was casually dating for a while, and wasn’t as committed as their imaginary girlfriend is to them.”

During their appearance on the talk show, Deepika and Ranveer discussed the arrangement they had in the initial stages of their relationship, sparking mixed reactions online. Deepika revealed that they weren’t exclusive until Ranveer proposed and that they were technically allowed to see other people. She said, “I wanted to be single for a while because I had come from difficult relationships. I was going through a phase where I said ‘I just don’t want to be attached, don’t want to be committed’. And I had fun. And then he comes along, so I didn’t ‘commit commit’, until he proposed to me. There was no ‘commitment as such. Even if we were technically allowed to see other people, we would just keep coming back to each other.”