On Wednesday, Kangana, 29, said, "This seems to be a very distorted thing to say to people who are representing us and it can be one's personal opinion but being such a credible author and powerful woman who people look upto, it's disheartening and it's not good news at all. I hope our athletes don't get disheartened."
Goal of Team India at the Olympics: Rio jao. Selfies lo. Khaali haat wapas aao. What a waste of money and opportunity.
— Shobhaa De (@DeShobhaa) August 8, 2016
It was greeted by a maelstrom of criticism, some of it direct and some of it indirect, like these tweets from Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan and Arjun Kapoor, who do not address their posts to Shobhaa De but clearly intend to reference her comment.
T 2342 - India Rio, PROUD of YOU !! Do not dismay failure .. to them that lament loss, look around .. any of our neighbours seen anywhere ??
— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) August 8, 2016
Yes, winning is the goal. But representing your country at the Olympics is a HUGE deal too regardless of the results. Proud of r athletes.
— Abhishek Bachchan (@juniorbachchan) August 9, 2016
Everyone has an opinion about our athletes at Rio, wish everyone with an opinion had once tried to even represent their country.#IndiaAtRio
— Arjun Kapoor (@arjunk26) August 9, 2016
@Abhinav_Bindra And do so despite of and in spite of there being no infra & institutional support, and no sporting culture @DeShobhaa
— Gul Panag (@GulPanag) August 9, 2016
On a separate front, singer Abhijeet's tweet describing Shobhaa De as 'shameless' was pounced on by actress Sonam Kapoor, who accused him of hypocrisy. Abhijeet is being investigated for abusive tweets against a female journalist.
An argument followed .
You're such a hypocrite.. https://t.co/FoTF1sp5c6
— Sonam Kapoor (@sonamakapoor) August 9, 2016
Yes @sonamakapoor we all r hypocrites bt not the Khandani FILMI type hypocrites nor page3, we r proud of our players https://t.co/sy8Q3o2sjd
— abhijeet (@abhijeetsinger) August 9, 2016
