Akshay Kumar, National Award, Rustom
Akshay Kumar in RustomTwitter

Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar has been announced as the winner of the 64th National Film Awards 2017 in the Best Actor category for Rustom. Though there have been great performers in 2016, the jury chose to honour the Khiladi actor

Akshay appeared in three films – Airlift, Rustom and Housefull 3 – last year and his performances were commendable. But there were other actors who did far better than him and deserved the National Award.

Manoj Bajpayee in Aligarh, Shahid Kapoor in Udta Punjab, Aamir Khan in Dangal, Randeep Hooda in Sarabjit and Nawazuddin Siddiqui in Rama Raghav 2.0 raised the bar of acting. And in front of them, Akshay's performance was nothing extraordinary that deserved a National Award.

Akshay made headlines at the beginning of this year when he was not nominated for Filmfare Awards, despite the three hit movies he gave in 2016. Is this National Award a form of consolation for the Rustom actor? Has the prestigious award also become like Filmfare and other award shows? Also, we wonder if it has something to do with Priyadarshan being a part of the jury considering the duo has worked together in a few films, including Hera Pheri and Bhool Bhulaiyaa. 

Manoj Bajpayee, Aamir Khan, Shahid Kapoor
Manoj Bajpayee, Aamir Khan, Shahid KapoorTwitter

We are happy that Akshay has been honoured with a National Award for the first time, but it is unfair to other performers who were brilliant last year. In fact, the jury chose Sonam Kapoor and her film Neerja for Special Mention and Best Film categories. However, Alia Bhatt and Radhika Apte were amazing in Udta Punjab and Parched, but didn't receive even a mention. 

Well, we don't know how the winners were decided but we believe that the deserving candidates were ignored by the jury. 

Watch Rustom's trailer here: