Amitabh Bachchan’s daughter Shweta Nanda made her debut alongside father in an advertisement of a Kerala-based jewelry chain, Kalyan Jewellers. This one-and-half minute-long advertisement has faced criticism and backlash from the banking industry which termed it “disgusting”
All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC) on Thursday threatened to sue Kalyan Jewellers accusing it of “casting aspersion and hurting the sentiments of millions of personnel” through the advertisement. “Bachchan tries to exhibit his honesty by drumming around that honesty doesn’t mean when everyone is watching, rather it is about being honest when nobody is looking at you. But, Mr. Bachchan perhaps was unaware that in the process of doing so on screen, he has made a mockery of the entire bankers’ community in the ad which is deplorable and culpable,” AIBOC said in a statement.
AIBOC General Secretary Soumya Datta said, “The advertisement portrays banks in a bad light, casting aspersion, hurting the sentiment of millions of personnel, stakeholders and is a direct attempt to ruin the trust and confidence of billions of citizenries in banks.” “We express our strong resentment against the management of Kalyan Jewellers and Mr Bachchan who have manifested a negative and false image of the Banks in the ad for their personal aggrandizement. We deem it as a case of defamation to all the banks as a whole,” he said.
Kalyan Jewellers rejected the allegation, saying it was “pure fiction.”
“We understand that your esteemed association feels that the bankers have been portrayed in bad light.We state it on record that it is a pure fiction and at no point we have intended to generalize the bank officers at large,” Kalyan jewellers said in a letter to Datta.”Please accept our unconditional disclaimer for the same. We shall within three working days from today add ‘characters and situations depicted are fictional.The brand does not intend to disrespect or malign any person or community’ before the advertisement,” it said.