Kumar Vikram By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: About 50 National Film Award winners boycotted the presentation ceremony on Thursday after they learnt that President Ram Nath Kovind, in a departure from tradition, would give away the awards to only 11 winners while the rest would receive them from Minister of Information and Broadcasting Smriti Irani.

IN PHOTOS | National Film Awards ceremony marked by few smiles, many frowns

Among those who received the award and citation from Kovind were Boney Kapoor and his daughters on behalf of the late Sridevi, music composer AR Rahman, and Akshay Khanna on behalf of his late father Vinod Khanna.

Divya Dutta seated alone in the gallery.

(EPS | Shekhar Yadav)

But most winners received their awards from Irani. A day earlier, a massive controversy had erupted with many refusing to accept the award from her. One of the winners, director Indrani Chakraborty, said she was disappointed. “Getting the National Award from the President of India is a huge honour. Any recipient treasures that one photograph with the President for life. We have given a signed petition to the directorate of film festivals stating that we will be absent from the ceremony if the awards aren’t given by the President.”

Vacant seats filled with 'dummies'

As the National Film Award winners, their guests and other invitees began gathering at the presentation venue, at least two rows of seats reserved for the awardees were vacant.

“The empty seats were later filled with dummies,” an award winner told The New Indian Express.

Shekhar Kapur, chairman of the awards jury, earlier tried to mediate but failed to convince the agitated winners. About 60 award winners, including directors Kaushik Ganguly and Atanu Ghosh, wrote a letter to the President to express their disappointment. But with no response forthcoming, many left for the airport.

“In the circumstance of not receiving a response for our grievance, we are left with no option but to be absent for the ceremony. We do not intend to boycott the award, but are not attending the ceremony to convey our discontent and are awaiting a just solution,” read the letter.

The President’s secretariat issued a clarification which said, “The President attends all award functions and convocations for a maximum of one hour. This has been the protocol since he took office. It was conveyed to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry several weeks ago and the ministry knew this all along. Rashtrapati Bhavan is surprised by the 11th hour questions that have been raised.”

Over 50 seats were vacant while Smriti Irani gave away the awards. To save her from embarrassment, organisers removed the name plates of the absent awardees and people sitting in the back rows were allowed to occupy the front seats.

Those present at the ceremony to receive awards included Rima Das, Jayaraj, Riddhi Sen, A R Rahman, K J Yesudas, Nagraj Manjule, Pankaj Tripathi, Divya Dutta, Nikhil S Praveen, Tenzing Kunchok and Sanjiv Monga.