The actor posted a cheeky Instagram reel joking that Premanand Maharaj actually offered Kohli Rs 20 crore, hours after the cricketer's team denied any payment ever happened.
Vivek Sinha has decided to have some fun with a controversy that's anything but funny for everyone involved.
The Dhurandhar actor posted a reel on his Instagram on Tuesday, taking aim at what he called an incomplete rumour doing the rounds about Virat Kohli and spiritual leader Premanand Maharaj. In the clip, Sinha claimed the real story behind the alleged Rs 5 crore payment hadn't been told yet, then offered his own spin on it, suggesting the guru might have actually promised Kohli Rs 20 crore to walk barefoot through mud and cow dung to the ashram, since that sort of visual, he joked, would do far more for Maharaj Ji's image than a quiet cash transfer ever could.
He wrapped the video with a warning aimed squarely at the people spreading the allegations. "Arey mat karo, bhai," he said, asking critics to stop before things got out of hand, and signing off with a "Radhe radhe" for good measure. The reel cuts to footage of Kohli and Anushka Sharma walking barefoot through mud to reach the ashram, which Sinha framed as proof of devotion rather than any transaction.
Sinha's intervention lands at a strange moment for Premanand Maharaj, whose Vrindavan ashram has been under scrutiny since the suspicious death of a disciple there. That death is what set off a wave of online speculation questioning the guru's spiritual credentials, and it's within that noise that the Rs 5 crore claim about Kohli and Sharma first surfaced, reportedly traced to remarks by one Falahari Maharaj Dinesh Sharma.
Kohli's team didn't find any of it amusing. In a statement issued Wednesday morning, they called the claims "completely false, baseless and factually incorrect," and insisted the cricketer's visits to the ashram come from genuine faith, not a brief. "Mr Virat Kohli visits Premanand Maharaj Ji purely out of his deep faith and reverence for Maharaj Ji," the statement read, with the team also asking media outlets to verify facts before running with them.
None of that has settled anything online. Sinha's video has only added another layer to a story that now has a cricketer's camp issuing denials, a guru's followers on the defensive, and an actor turning the whole thing into a bit, all while the circumstances of the disciple's death remain unresolved and unaddressed by anyone named in this controversy.
Whether Falahari Maharaj Dinesh Sharma responds to Kohli's denial, or whether Premanand Maharaj's ashram issues its own statement, is the next thing to watch here.
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