Even though the show is over and the winner declared, it is not accepted by all. A few issues are still cropping up with regards to fairness in voting, thereby questioning the validity of the results. A lot of questions are being raised on Raja not winning the show, despite being more popular, and that both the mentors of Raja are miffed with the channel house on the issue. We decided to talk to his mentors Vishal and Shekhar and get their views on the issue.

Vishal Dadlani, one of the mentors of Raja feels Zee never did any cheating as far as voting goes. “I am very clear of the fact that Zee was very transparent, and very straightforward as far as votes are concerned. My only issue is with the voting software’s used by all fans as that I consider as cheating. I do believe that Aneek deserved to win, and I have no negativity against him. I hope people would support him and also Raja and Amanat as all three are really good.” So what about Aneek’s victory? “Aneek won fair and square. I do believe Raja and Amanat both also deserved to win, as much as Aneek deserved to win. I have no problem that Aneek won. I definitely think there was no cheating involved. The sad part I feel is, Aneek is getting lot of negative publicity because he won which is actually quite tragic. We should all be sporting enough, and we should all congratulate him and move on now. This is not the end of anyone’s existence. I feel people should support Aneek as of now, and I would request them to support even Raja and Amanat.”

Shekhar also had similar views but has some reservations against this public voting format in itself. “For me SRGMP is now over. People have made their decision. Aneek won fair, no questions there. But at the same I feel all of them deserved to win. Also, I personally feel that voting, winning doesn’t make a difference. At the end of the day, the singer has to become a professional, has to become among the top five singer of the industry.” He had a message for all who had voted for the contestants during the show. “People who have voted are all well wishers of these contestants. They are voting, taking their precious time and money out to vote for them as they want to see them big in the industry. I don’t think 80% of these very voters would want them to now disappear after the contest. They want to hear more of the singers. I would like to thank them all, irrespective of whose fan they are, for spending so much time on these contestants.” So who was better according to him? “If I had to choose, I would have gone for maybe Amanat. Because, I feel he is the one who is the most talented one and ready for playback singing. Raja still needs to get bit more experience, even though we are just now recording a song of his for one of our forthcoming movie. Aneek is still young. But he is a very very talented young boy.”

Now that the show is finally over, what do both feel aboutl some controversies that are coming out? Vishal had a very straightforward reply, “What I feel is that there’s so much love for these kids that it has gone mad beyond anyone’s expectations. Reason being all three were so good.” Shekhar in turn wished something that maybe all music lovers are wishing for long. “Personally I feel SRGMP needs to go back to its old format where eminent music personalities as judges make the decisions. And we have decided that if we do SRGMP C-2008, we’ll make sure to go back to the old format. We already informed the channel house about it, and they are also now thinking on this issue. The credibility of this show, when the SRGMP started was that only really good singers come out from this show. People actually die to watch SRGMP not for glamour, drama or us but for pure music. That is our Indian crowd and I really appreciate them for this.”

So this lays to rest the controversies about Vishal-Shekhar being miffed with Zee Channel. They both want that now, everyone should move on. But one thing is clear. With judges like Shekhar and Vishal as part of this show, viewers can now keep their hopes alive to see a better format on this show, a format that can be related to just music.

Reporter: Barnali
Author: Barnali