Srikanth Producer Opens Up About Rajkummar Rao National Award Snub; Calls Kartik Aaryan 'Phenomenal'

The 72nd National Film Awards for the year 2024 were announced on July 18 by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Kartik Aaryan and Mammootty shared the Best Actor award for Chandu Champion and Bramayugam, while Yami Gautam bagged Best Actress for her performance in Article 370. Rajkummar Rao-starrer Srikanth bagged the Best Hindi Feature Film honour. 

Many felt that Rajkummar deserved the Best Actor trophy for his stellar performance in the biopic on Srikanth Bolla, a visually-impaired industrialist. However, Srikanth co-producer Nidhi Parmar Hiranandani doesn't call it a snub for Rajkummar.

Srikanth producer on Rajkummar Rao's National Award snub

"I don’t think you can snub an actor of Raj’s calibre at all. That’s not possible," Nidhi told News18 in an interview.

"I don’t think the jury of National Awards would do that. I’m sure they had their reasons. Expectation-wise, every maker wants a win for their cast, crew and themselves. And Raj has given one of the finest performances of his career in this film. It’s there for everyone to see. As Srikanth, he brought him alive onscreen and we’re very grateful to him for that," she added.

Nidhi also said they lost hope when Srikanth wasn’t selected as India’s official entry to the Oscars and that's why the National Award was something they didn’t even think about. She calls it a "highest honour."

Nidhi, the wife of director Tushar Hiranandani, further said, "I was expecting some nominations for our film. Our cast members received the Best Actor and the Best Supporting Actor awards. The writers got nominated but Tushar didn’t get nominated at all."

"I don’t know how many nominations the film got either. But through the process of being snubbed by everyone, it felt like maybe it’s not happening for us. But it didn’t bother me much because it didn’t mean that we made a lesser film. It just meant that I don’t know how to play the game," she said further.

She congratulated Kartik on his big win. "The National Awards jury knew what they were doing. But would we’ve wanted Raj to win? Definitely. Does that mean we didn’t want Kartik to win? No. They’ve taken the right decision," she added.