So this is what I have gathered and now believe (You can consider it complete fiction or fact, upto u),
As viewers of the show, we always want to believe that we have a huge role in determining who the finalists are, who the winner is, but unfortunately, not a lot of that is true. It does happen, once every 2-3 seasons, that just based on audience liking, a contestant gets into the finals, but that's a rarity.
The makers of the show have a lot invested in specific contestants and hence their journeys are chartered/ managed by them all the way to the finale.
At the beginning of the show itself, I believe, three contestants were decided to be amongst the top three in the finale. There were 2-3 other contestants who were committed 10 weeks.
PR has a huge role to play these days with social media guiding neutral viewers towards liking a particular contestant. But PR does cost a lot of money. I always used to wonder can these contestants run massive 4-5 month social media campaigns for them, and now I realised its not just the contestants money which is put to use
Now back to the top three,
1) The leading lady of the show has a very long term contract signed with the channel. Hence the channel spent a lot of money for her PR, because she has signed up for shows with the channel over the next at least 5 years. So she was guaranteed a top three finish. The channel will invest heavily in her in shows in the future. Her husband had signed the 10 week contract, so regardless of whether he ate only apples and oranges, he had to be around for 10 weeks. Thats why the wife was so desperate to retain the immunity stone, so that she could elongate the stay of her husband post the 10 weeks
2) This leading lady and her boyfriend are very close to the channel team members. The other leading lady was also offered a top three finish, however, mid way through the show, the makers realised that she doesn't have any support and is well honestly appearing really bad to viewers. So hence they decided to train her boyfriend and send him to the show to help her look better. Her boyfriend appeared to be a stronger candidate in the show and honestly, the leading lady's performance didn't become better. They eliminated the boy friend, brought him back, almost eliminated the leading lady, then finally eliminated her, to let the boyfriend finish in the top three.
3) I was always surprised with the fan following of this other top three finalist. I'm sure he does have fan following, but really all the money to be spent in PR over 4-5 months was surprising. Well, I believe he is extremely close to the leading industrial family of the country and they have backed him in a humongous way to get to the finale.
Everyone else was largely used as a pawn in the show, with minor roles for a brief time period to be played by them. Am in no way concluding here that these three are not deserving to be in the finale. Upto viewers to judge. Just figured that we don't have so much role to play in deciding the winner as we thought we do. Most neutral viewers even if they like the contestants don't have the werewithal to generate highest ever twitter trends etc. If u see any of those trends, then please understand that they are funded through PR.
May the most deserving man/ woman win the show.