Following questions that arose about Akshay Kumar’s National Award win, Priyadarshan, who is in the jury panel, said he didn’t understand all the fuss. The director had been accused of favouritism, for the jury headed by him presented the Best Actor award to Akshay Kumar – an actor he is said to be on good terms with.
“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 the jury, Ajay Devgn won. So no one questioned at that time. So why all these questions are cropping up today,” Priyadarshan told the PTI.
The filmmaker revealed that Akshay’s performances in Rustom and Airlift were considered by the jury for the selection process. As only one film could be named, they had decided to award Rustom.
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“Akshay was given the Best Actor [award] 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.”
The list of National Awar met with a lot of criticism. AR Murugadoss even took to Twitter to slam the jury’s “biased and partial” decisions.