The production house and channel of Deal Ya No Deal are tearing their hair out.
Rajeev Khandelwal (ex-Sujal of Kahiin To Hoga) has been haughty, unprofessional and troublesome from day one.
And the latest — Khandelwal refused an interview with a radio channel to promote the show, despite the fact that the channel had signed a contract with them.
Dadagiri kyun?
Says a well-placed source, "Since the beginning of Deal Ya No Deal, Rajeev has had an issue with Red FM. Sony had cracked a deal with the station and got drive-in time, when the show began. However, the radio station did some promos on Rajeev, which called him Sujal. This irked Rajeev and he demanded an apology from them."
Counter attackDid the station apologise? "No way!" the source shot back. "Instead, they did a Kamla Ka Hamla on Rajeev, wherein a eunuch, who calls himself Kamla takes a certain peg and rattles off sarcasm on a celebrity."
Kamla Ka Hamla made Rajeev angrier, in fact, 'red' with rage. He decided to boycott the radio station.
"Today, Rajeev was scheduled to be in the studio around 8.30 am to talk about Deal Ya Na Deal. But he categorically refused. In the end, under pressure from the channel, he agreed to do a phone-in interview, which will be aired today."
Darna zaroori hai
Isn't he under contract by the channel (Sony) to do promotions? "The channel would not offend him at this stage as he might just leave the show mid-way.
As it is, he is the third host. Rajeev should understand that people only recognise him as Sujal. There is no reason for him to get irritated if called by his popular screen character name."
When contacted, RJ Malishka said she had questioned Rajeev off-air about his reasons for not showing up.
"He told me that the issue had been blown out of proportion. The fact is, we had referred to him as Sujal in the promos earlier and he didn't like that. I think he took that a bit too seriously," said the RJ.
Dum maro dum
There are other problems with Rajeev on the set. "He is a chain smoker. The set is an air-conditioned, therefore, he keeps stepping out for smoke breaks. This not only consumes longer time to shoot the episode, but worse, he grumbles every time he has to go out."
Once outside, Rajeev doesn't get better. The source reveals, "If he has to wait between the episodes in the vanity van, he does want anyone else sharing the van with him. He acts like he's a superstar."
Rajeev was unavailable for comment.
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