I think Zee's shoddy handling of votes and declaration of the final placement puts up so many red flags that it will even make Chairman Mao proud.
How many red flags, let me count the ways!!
It would be a mistake to just approach it as Jai deserved to win and Salman did not. Lets try to see whether Zee's process was foolproof or not. Any competition worth its ilk gets certified by an auditor. It is not known whether Zee votes were certified. Its also not known even now whether online votes are counted or not. Opinions of people vary by day and by whom they are supporting. Next time Zee should clarify the process in advance.
Now just look at the results. Jai just cannot come fourth after Siddesh. That after coming first in the previous episode. Reality shows are not new in India and its foolish to suggest that all Jai supporters went on a snooze. So what is the reason... Zee wanted 1 contestant from each mentor. It is not a stretch to say that a thief would commit grand larceny. Once Zee compromises the results in this way, the reliability / trustworthiness of the process flies away.
Redflag - the limelight episode
Redflag - Md. Ghouse name was changed to Salman. And the Bollywood hero he is dancing with Salman Khan. Also when Salman Khan came at the beginning of the show .. guess whom he favored most and also from then onwards the name changed to Salman.
Redflag - all the highlights focussed solely on Salman at first and then after reading this forum Zee changed its tracks and started focussing on others.
Redflag - What was Zee's original intention? Long time back they put up a poll in their website. Whom do you want to vote among Salman, Siddesh and Sunita? Each of them taps on to a different demographic and maximum money for Zee. Now it became apparent than Sunita cannot match the other contestants in talent. So its the turn of Alisha and the girl angle as well as tap into Jharkhand pride.
No need for Mayuresh since he is the same demographics with Siddesh and Siddesh is Maharashtra ki Gaurav. So eliminate Mayuresh.
Jai with his fabulous dances was a party crasher. But is his demographics strong enough to tilt the Muslim vote, the girl vote, the local boy vote. Probably not but give the Jai backers some hope by suddenly lifting him from last to first. This really suckered in many including me who started to believe maybe the whole thing is not scripted at all. But still the sudden change looked too good to be true.
Anyway it sad that they had to spoil a great show with such skullduggery. Better luck finding new suckers next time.