The year 2024 is full of surprises with never thought about collaborations and meet-ups. A few days ago, Nagpur's famous Dolly Chaiwala grabbed headlines for serving tea to Bill Gates. Dolly Chaiwala's business and unique way of making tea was one of the reasons why Bill Gates wanted to taste his tea.
Dolly in an interview mentioned that he didn't know who Bill Gates was and still gave him tea thinking he was a foreigner.
And now once again, Dolly has grabbed headlines and this time he was seen posing and vacationing in the Maldives with Sohail Khan.
Dolly shared the pictures from his vacation on social media along with a reel where he is seen enjoying the cool breeze and posing with the officials at the resort.
He also bumped into Sohail Khan who is enjoying a getaway with family.
Netizens slammed Sohail Khan and Dolly Chaiwala for holidaying in Maldives amid boycott row.
All you need to know about Boycott Maldives
To promote Indian tourism PM Modi visited the Lakshadweep Islands and posted a slew of images from the island enjoying himself. He told citizens to explore our incredible India.
However, PM Modi's visit to Lakshadweep didn't go well with some Maldives people, including government officials. Maldives minister Mariyam Shiuna Lakshadweep made a derogatory Comment about India and faced massive backlash. After receiving hate, she deleted the post on X.
Shiuna had encouraged tourists to visit the island country, through the #VisitMaldives trend. Some other Maldivian netizens also posted racist and insulting comments against Indians.
Mariyam Shiuna, Deputy Minister of Youth Empowerment, Information and Arts, had tweeted this. After backlash on X, and rightly so, she was forced to delete this abusive and hateful tweet. She is however standing up for her Country because she loves her Country and hates PM Modi.… pic.twitter.com/M4M182BR1R
— Rupa Murthy (@rupamurthy1) January 7, 2024
After this, a Maldives politician made a controversial remark on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Lakshadweep. Zahid Rameez, a member of the Progressive Party of Maldives Senate, wrote, "The move is great. However, the idea of competing with us is delusional. How can they provide the service we offer? How can they be so clean? The permanent smell in the rooms will be the biggest downfall."
This irked Indian citizens and celebrities posted #BoycottMaldives.
Bollywood celebrities like Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan, John Abraham, Shraddha Kapoor and many others came out in support of Indian tourism and took to social media and urged Indian travellers to explore Indian islands like Lakshadweep instead of planning a vacation in the Maldives.
Incredible India is not just a tag, our beautiful country has some of the most incredible and stunning locales and #Lakshadweep is an example of it- a heaven like place in India itself! Can’t wait to explore this beautiful Indian island. #ExploreIndianIslands pic.twitter.com/Z16hxG0fOo
— Kartik Aaryan (@TheAaryanKartik) January 7, 2024
The Maldives-India row is far from getting over.
Meanwhile, after the Maldives boycott several tourists are heading to Sri Lanka. As a result of this, Sri Lanka received more tourists than Maldives in January 2024. Male-based news outlet Adhadhu reported that tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka lagged behind the Maldives over the past four years. But in January, Sri Lanka surpassed Maldives in tourist arrivals. Last month, 192,385 tourists visited the Maldives, while 208,253 tourists visited Sri Lanka - up by over 1 lakh recorded last January.
