By
RUBY ZAIDI
The viewers of Indian Idol season 15 have been quite vocal about the show throughout its run on Sony Entertainment Television.
As the channel and the production house announced the winner and runner-up, the fans expressed their thoughts on social media.
While the majority of the audience was pleased with the Indian Idol 15 finale voting results, they were unhappy with Anirudh Suswaram’s elimination.
The Kurnool-based singer was evicted from the Indian Idol season 15 pre-finale episode on Saturday (April 5), setting several tongues wagging.
Anirudh shared a video where he documented how his screen time was reduced.
He stated, “Since I was in a war (competition), I had fought it, not expressing anything until I was on the show.
It’s me who chose to go to the show just for my music. I have questioned whenever such injustice has happened, and it in turn caused more of such events may be because someone’s ego got hurt.
Let it be songs given to me, let it be arrangements of my songs, let it be positioning of my songs on shoot day and episode telecast.
Screen space given, not making me sing in front of guests maximum number of times, sometimes skipping my performance and making me sing later whenever they wanted to, Manipulations done on edits, etc .”
Anirudh described his experience as ‘mental trauma, ‘ leaving the audience stunned.
“Just FYI. I am indebted for all that I have received from the show. I will be forever grateful to the showmakers, judges, and crew.
But the pain and trauma I have gone through off the camera are so personal, and I expressed my pain.
I didn’t even mention what I faced, but just put that I have gone through lots of mental stress so that people who would love to aspire bigger things from a show like this will be well prepared mentally too before entering.”
A well-known singer with the condition not to reveal his name said, ” In previous seasons of the show we have seen many Muslim contestants, and few of them stood victorious, but in recent seasons there were no Muslim. This has led to people feeling now, the show is influenced by some political agenda,andd they are avoiding muslim contestants.
It all started from season 13, when from the beginning it was seen Ayodhya, Jai Sri Ram, and Saffaron colour was specifically being highlighted and finally Rishi Singh a contestant from Ayodhya won the show.
I just want to say that we artists are very emotional creatures, and we don’t discriminate talents in the name of cast, religion, language or state, so the organisers should not give mental shocks to us.”
There were no Muslim contestants in the top 16 of Indian Idol season 15, Some viewers have expressed that the show has been mocked as “Bengal Idol” because most of the selected singers are of Bengali origin, leading to the absence of contestants from other regions and religious backgrounds, specially muslim contestants.
One Facebook post mentions that no Muslims, Sikhs, or people from the Northeast were selected in
the top 16 of this season.
Manasi Ghosh won the show, but most of the viewers said Sneha Shankar was more deserving.
Manasi Ghosh, a Bengali singer, won the show.
The show’s producers or organizers have not issued any statement regarding the lack of Muslim contestants in the top 16.