Newton

Rajkummar Rao is one underrated actor in Bollywood who has been performing consistently for the past couple of years. Last year, the talented actor gave some great performances in films like Trapped, Newton, Bareilly Ki Barfi, Behen Hogi Teri and Shaadi Me Zaroor Aana.

Notice that all the characters he portrayed in these movies were completely different from one another. And there are very few actors in the industry who can pull off such kind of transition between their roles and still look convincing on screen.

Rao's hard work was praised in Newton and he was bestowed with the Best Actor Award at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. But it looks like the domestic awards are not that interested in recognising and awarding deserving talent in our own country.

The complete list of nominations for the 63rd Jio Filmfare Awards 2018 were announced on January 18, but our eyes popped out when Rajkummar Rao and his Oscar-nominated film Newton were excluded from the nominations in the Best Actor and Best Film categories in the final list of nominees.

Take a look at the nominations in the Best Actor and the Best film category.

Best Actor In A Leading Role (Male)
Akshay Kumar
Toilet: Ek Prem Katha

Ayushmaan Khurrana
Shubh Mangal Saavdhan

Hrithik Roshan
Kaabil

Irrfan Khan
Hindi Medium

Shah Rukh Khan
Raees

Varun Dhawan
Badrinath Ki Dulhania

Best Film

Badrinath Ki Dulhania

Bareilly Ki Barfi

Hindi Medium

Secret Superstar

Toilet: Ek Prem Katha

Filmfare, however, nominated Rajkummar in the Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Male) category for his performance in Bareilly Ki Barfi, which like an attempt to not hurt anyone's sentiments and silence wagging tongues.

Best Actor In A Supporting Role (Male)
Aamir Khan
Secret Superstar

Deepak Dobriyal
Hindi Medium

Manav Kaul
Tumhari Sulu

Nawazuddin Siddiqui
Mom

Pankaj Tripathi
Newton

Rajkummar Rao
Bareilly Ki Barfi

Fair enough.

But what about not nominating Newton, which was selected as the Indian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, in the Best Film category?

Interestingly, this is hardly the first time Filmfare has been accused of such hipocrisy. Many were outraged when Sooraj Pancholi -- son of Aditya Pancholi -- was awarded Best Debutant (Male) in 2015 for Hero over Vicky Kaushal for his performance in the hauntingly beautiful Masaan.

Filmfare has also been accused of pandering to the ruling Khans, an allegation that detractors thought was proved -- at least for them -- when Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Chennai Express was awarded Trendsetter Of The Year. The category seemed to have materialised out of thin air, and naysayers claimed it was just to mollify King Khan.

However, these allegations are hardly new. Undeserving winners of Filmfare awards seem to have been around since the time when India was on the cusp of switching over to colour films! A lot of people were scandalised when Madhubala was passed over for the Best Actress trophy for the magnum opus that was Mughal-e-Azam, and the award went to Bina Rai for Ghunghat.

Well, this just goes to show why these prestigious awards are not taken seriously in India despite all the fanfare.

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