Deepika Padukone's Skill India promo video dropped after JNU visit, govt says evaluating it

New Delhi: Two days after Deepika Padukone paid a surprise visit to Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi inviting extreme reactions, the Narendra Modi government's skill development ministry has "dropped" a promotional video that had the actor speaking about acid attack survivors and Skill India, ThePrint has learnt.

"A promotional video to promote Skill India featuring Deepika Padukone was to be released today (Wednesday). It was being circulated in the Shram Shakti Bhawan (ministry office) too. But after yesterday's (Tuesday's) chain of events the video was abruptly dropped," a senior official in the ministry told ThePrint Wednesday.

The ministry, however, said Thursday it was only "evaluating" the video.

The 45-second promotional video on Skill India has Padukone speaking about equal opportunities for all citizens of the country, pegging it on her film Chhapaak, a biographical drama on an acid attack survivor set to release Friday. ThePrint has seen the video.

The skill ministry had facilitated Padukone's meeting with acid attack survivors before the video was produced.

In its official response to a query from ThePrint, the ministry, however, said there has been no "formal engagement" with Padukone.

"As part of the regular process under communication and promotional activity for Skill India, the team keeps getting ideas from media houses and organisations to cross-promote each other. The production team (of Chhapaak) had approached Skill India for promoting the subject of the film," said the ministry.

(Inputs from The Print)