The 65th National
Film Awards ceremony is all set to take place at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi this
afternoon. However, according to Mumbai Mirror, the awardees, who had assembled
for rehearsals of the event yesterday, were in for a rude shock when they
discovered that only 11 awards would be presented by President Ram Nath Kovind.
The rest of the
awards, they learnt from a docket issued to them, would be handed over by Union
Information & Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani, Rajyavardhan Singh
Rathore, Minister of State, Information & Broadcasting, and Narendra Kumar
Sinha, Secretary, Information & Broadcasting.
Vinod Khanna(Awarded With Dadasaheb Phalke) And Sridevi(Awarded With Best Actress)
According to the
docket, Kovind would arrive at the venue at 5:30 pm, after Irani, Rathore and Sinha had
presented the bulk of the awards between 3:30 pm and 5:30 pm. It was further conveyed that post the
ceremony, the winners would get the customary photo-op with the President in
groups of 45.
Since the
inception of the awards in 1954, all winners have been felicitated by the
President and, goes without saying, departure from the tradition led to flared
tempers. A source told the leading daily, many peeved winners threatened to
boycott the ceremony, following which the director of the Directorate of Film
Festivals, which organises the awards, asked them to air their grievances
directly with Irani.
Smriti Irani (left), Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (middle) And Narendra Kumar Sinha (right)
It is reported
that when the awardees met up with Irani, the I&B minister reasoned with
them saying that the President had allotted only an hour for the ceremony. “The
awardees told her that the time allotted for speeches and photo-ops could be
cut down, so that all the winners could be felicitated by the President himself,”
the source told Mumbai Mirror.
The other option they gave to the minister was that she could present all the
awards herself. “They were against differentiation of winners, and demarcation
of awards was not acceptable to anybody and the threat of boycott was
repeated,” added the source.
President Ram Nath Kovind
The awardees’
meeting with Irani ended with the minister telling them that she had contacted
the President’s office and would get back to them as soon as she heard back
from Vigyan Bhavan.
“It has been
verbally conveyed to them that they should be present at the Vigyan Bhavan
by 3:15pm. It looks as
if the awards will be held as per their wishes — Irani will give out the awards
until 5:30 pm, following which the President will arrive,” the source said.
Image Source: Thenewsminute/wikimediacommons/navbharattimes