New Delhi | A new controversy erupted in India after a photo of pop icon Rihanna wearing a purple shorts with the necklace of Ganesh, India’s most famous deity, was aired and dressed topless in a lingerie ad.

The new storm of the powerful “influencer” on social media, with the number of subscribers on Twitter and 91.4 million on Instagram, comes a few weeks after a strong reaction from the authorities in their defense of farmers who demonstrated against the agricultural reforms in the country. .

Ram Kaddam, a member of parliament and a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Nationalist Party, wrote on Twitter, “It’s a shame how @ Rihanna makes fun of our beloved Lord # Ganesh.” “It shows how it does not respect the Indian culture and traditions.”

The World Hindu Council (Vishva Hindu Parishad, VHP), a group affiliated with the ruling Hindu Nationalist Party (BJP), has allegedly filed complaints to get Twitter and Facebook to remove the photo and take action against Rihanna’s accounts.

Rihanna, among other world famous people, was criticized by the Indian Foreign Ministry in early February for interfering in a “dramatic” way in the country’s agricultural reforms, following tweets from Rihanna and Greta Thunberg about the exit of farmers’ protests. Widely.

“Why aren’t we talking about this ?! #FarmersProtest,” the pop star wrote, as he shared a CNN report covering internet shutdowns in Delhi during farmers’ protests last week.

His message was instantly retweeted more than 230,000 times and nearly 80,000 commented on it. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, one of the world’s leading environmental activists, also retweeted it, as did Mina Harris, the Indian-born daughter of the US Vice President, Kamala Harris.