Everyone should exercise their right to vote responsibly: Shah Rukh Khan

Mumbai: Shah Rukh Khan's "Jawan" has been in the news since its release for highlighting various social as well as political issues and when a fan praised the superstar for his monologue on the importance of casting a vote, the actor once again emphasised on exercising the right "intelligently and responsibly".

The high-octane action thriller, directed by Tamil filmmaker Atlee, is a father-son story that addresses social and political issues through its hero, essayed by Shah Rukh.

It touches upon themes of government apathy, corruption, farmers suicide, a healthcare system in shambles, faulty army weapons and dangerous factories set near residential areas and in one of the key scenes, Shah Rukh's hero urges the common people to vote sensibly.

At the risk of giving spoilers, when a fan praised the actor for his speech from the film on X, formerly known as Twitter, Shah Rukh wrote: "Arree Usmein spoiler nahi hai…. Desh ki bhalaai ke liye sab spoilers maaf. Everyone should exercise their right to vote intelligently and responsibly." The 58-year-old requested the admirer to not share any other spoilers from the film, which also features Nayanthara, Vijay Sethupathi in pivotal roles and Deepika Padukone in a special appearance.

Actors Sanya Malhotra, Priyamani, Girija Oak, Sanjeeta Bhattacharya, Lehar Khan, Aaliyah Qureshi, Ridhi Dogra, Sunil Grover and Mukesh Chhabra also round out the cast.

In the film, Sanya's character is of a doctor trying to handle the situation of lack of oxygen supply at a government hospital, but gets jailed on dereliction of duty after the death of 63 children.

Many viewers noticed the similarity of the sub-plot with the 2017 Gorakhpur hospital tragedy, including Dr Kafeel Khan, who was jailed for dereliction of duty after 63 children died of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome at Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College in the city.

Kafeel Khan took to X to thank the makers of "Jawan" for showing an incident similar to his real-life. He said he had not yet seen the movie but was flooded with messages regarding the film since its release.

"I haven't seen 'Jawan', but people have been messaging me saying they thought about me after watching Dr Irrum's character. There is a lot of difference between the film world and real life. The culprits in the army, health minister etc. get punished. But here I and those 81 families are still wandering for justice... Thank you @iamsrk sir and @Atlee_dir sir for raising the social issue," he wrote.

"Jawan" released worldwide in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu on Thursday.