'I personally feel there's no disrespect in what happened': Vivek Oberoi on meme controversy

In wake of women panels condemning Vivek Oberoi's tweet on exit polls as "disrespectful" to the dignity of women, the actor said he has always been careful about respecting the opposite gender.

The National Commission for Women (NCW) on Monday sought a response from Vivek for his "misogynistic" tweet on exit polls. Earlier, the Maharashtra State Women's Commission (MSWC) had found his post disrespectful to women.

"I would want to meet the Women's Commission... I have been working on women empowerment since the past 10 years, and I don't just talk about it on social media... I am very careful as far as respect for women is concerned. I personally feel that there's no disrespect (in what happened). I would meet the Women's Commission and if they explain to me what is wrong in it, I would apologise," Vivek told the media on Monday.

The actor, who was here for the first screening of his forthcoming film PM Narendra Modi, landed in a controversy over a meme he tweeted, virtually mixing politics and films by dragging in the personal lives of Bollywood bigwigs.

His tweet showed a set of three photos - one referring to 'opinion poll' having a picture of Salman Khan and Aishwarya Rai, next was the 'exit poll' depicting himself with the actress and the third showing Aishwarya Rai Bachchan with her husband Abhishek Bachchan and their seven-year-old daughter Aaradhya.

The meme was originally shared by someone else on Twitter, but Vivek picked it up for his own comment: "Haha! Creative! No politics here just life!"

Explaining his post, he said: "Someone sent me a meme, I laughed at it and gave a response. It doesn't have bad words, it has nothing abusive, no sensational photo... It has a beautiful family photograph of Aishwarya, Aaradhya and Abhishek together, and they are happy... May God give them lots of happiness."

Vivek, who was here with the film's producer Sandip Singh, is himself happy that PM Narendra Modi, on the life of the Prime Minister, will finally see the light of the day on May 24. 

The film, directed by Omung Kumar B, was earlier stopped by the Election Commission from releasing on April 11, the day the Lok Sabha elections began, in favour of a level playing field in the polls.

"People told me that we are making this film to showcase Modiji as a hero... My response is that Modiji is the biggest hero of this nation."

The film's screening here was organised by Global Young Action Network Foundation, and was attended by Union Minister Vijay Goel.