Ever since the winners of 64th National Film Awards have been announced, controversies related to the winners list have erupted and how! Controversy over Akshay Kumar bagging the Best Actor Award for Rustom is still on, as few section of audiences along with members of film Fraternity are not convinced with the decision.
They believe that there were strong contenders for this category like Aamir Khan for Dangal, Shahid Kapoor for Udta Punjab and Manoj Bajpayee for Aligarh. Critics slammed Priyadarshan, the chairperson of 64th National for picking Akshay over these actors.
Since Akshay Kumar and Priyadarshan have collaborated for many films like Hera Pheri, Garam Masala, Bhagam Bhaag, Bhool Bhulaiya, De Dana Dan and Khatta Meetha, they believe that the good rapport between the actor and director made Akshay bag the National Award.
Priyadarshan cleared the air and said in a statement, “I have heard of all that and I will answer it in a simple way. When Ramesh Sippy was jury head, Amitabh Bachchan won. When Prakash Jha was head of jury, Ajay Devgn won. So none questioned at that time. So why all these questions are cropping up today.”
He further said, “Akshay was given the best actor on the basis of his performance in two films — ‘Airlift’ and ‘Rustom‘. It was the jury’s decision. One performance was dramatic and one was realistic. But according to the rule book, only one film can be mentioned and ‘Rustom’ was mentioned in the list. But the award recognises his performance in both the movies.”
Filmmaker Hansal Mehta on Friday (the day the Awards were announced) took a dig on Priyadarshan for not considering his film Aligarh for the National Awards.
And now, Popular Tamil Actor Arvind Swami expressed his disappointment on the Jury’s decision. The actor tweeted, “Nanavati case was one of the last of the jury trials in India. There seems to be other good reasons to do away with the jury. Sorry, seemed”.
Even popular director A.R. Murugadoss who directed Akshay Kumar’s Holiday : A Soldier Is Never Off Duty expressed his dissatisfaction and tweeted, ““#NationalAwards Can clearly witness the influence & partiality of people in jury, it’s biased”.
Since the controversy is refusing to slow down, it’ll be interesting to see Akshay’s reaction on colleagues comments.
