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After Aamir Khan refuses to do an anti-child labour campaign, state government plans to approach Shah Rukh Khan.

Aamir Khan has turned down the state government’s offer to campaign against child labour. The state labour ministry had been pursuing the actor for over four months.

Kavita Gupta, state labour secretary, said, “We felt Aamir was ideal for the campaign. It took us a while before we could meet and discuss the idea with him. We were told that he was busy with the election campaign, after which he was going abroad. We could only meet him after he returned. But unfortunately, he won’t be doing the campaign.”

It was only recently that Gupta managed to meet the actor with a concept note. “He said he’s been doing a lot of government interest campaigns and felt that if he spoke on every subject, his credibility would suffer,” said Gupta. When asked if the government is planning to approach any other actor, she said, “I guess we will have to approach Shah Rukh Khan now.”

Clarifying his position on the matter, Aamir said, “I’m doing a lot of public service messages and I didn’t want to dilute the (message in the) ads that I’ve already done by doing another one.” The actor has earlier done public service ads like the election campaign and promotion of tourism.

While the government has already started looking at other options, adman Prahlad Kakkar, who has offered his services to do the creatives for the campaign, refuses to give up on Aamir. “Aamir is the right choice for this issue and he has enormous credibility. He must have disagreed with the creative, not the cause,” said Kakkar.