Indian-American comedian Hasan Minhaj was barred from entering Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s rally at the NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas.
Videos posted on the Instagram account of Adam Matthew Weiss, president and CEO of AMWPR, which handled the event, showed Minhaj being told there were no press credentials or space available for him and his crew despite other videos showing that there was ample space inside.
But why would an Indian-American comedian, who has a massive following all over the world be banned from an Indian Prime Minister’s event?
Hasan Minhaj is the host of Netflix’s Patriot Act and is very critical of Modi’s government. He spoke (and posted) for the right to Independence for the people of Kashmir, which had more than 2M views on twitter.
Later, Indian actor Anupam Kher took a dig at Hasan, saying he was a “Kashmiri Pundit” and understood its plight.
Hasan has also been vocal against Modi’s re-election and did a segment on it on his program. He posted the clip on twitter which included jokes about Modi’s interview with actor Akshay Kumar and Modi’s video of him meditating in a cave.
Hasan mentioned how he is being trolled by BJP supporters, who thought he was trying to swing the elections. “Let me make this thing very clear. Comedians can’t swing elections,” he said.
His anti-Modi and pro-Kashmir stance is most likely the reason why he was not allowed to attend Modi’s “Howdy” event but we are still waiting for Hasan to reveal why he thinks he wasn’t let in.
Earlier in the day, Minhaj had shared a picture of himself outside the stadium.
