Deepika Padukone was snapped promoting her upcoming film on the children’s dance reality show, ‘Super Dancer Chapter 2’. The sari-clad actress even danced to her famous ‘Ghoomar’ song from the film with one of the contestants from the show. It’s a song that the actress, who plays the title role in Padmavati, has already won accolades for, even though it has been dissed for supposedly wrongly portraying a Rajput queen performing before an audience, midriff bared.

Even as director Sanjay Leela Bhansali has been accorded police protection in the light of threats, members of the Karni Sena are now turning their ire to Deepika. Besides calling for a country-wide ban on December 1, the date of the film’s release, some members are threatening the lead actress with physical harm.

“Rajputs never raise a hand on women but if need be, we will do to Deepika what Lakshman did to Shurpanakha,” they warned, referring to the incident of cutting off the nose, from the Ramayana. “We will gather in lakhs, our ancestors wrote history with blood we will not let anyone blacken it,” they claim.

Deepika has irked dissenters with her straightforward comments about the violent protests that have hounded the film. “It's appalling, it's absolutely appalling. What have we gotten ourselves into? And where have we reached as a nation? We have regressed,” she declared recently. Adding that the only people we are answerable to is the Censor Board, she declared, “I know and I believe that nothing can stop the release of this film… This is not about Padmavati... we are fighting a much bigger battle. I feel proud to be a part of this film, and to tell this story, which needs to be told. And it needs to be told now.”
The actress had also declared in the past, “Padmavati’s soul is somewhere here. There is energy beyond us…Her blessings are with us. Nothing and no one can stop this film.”
Time to hold on to that staunch faith.