Who is the real winner?

Controversies, real time melodrama, nasty betrayals, generous amount of swear words and a whole lot of thrills and spills courted MTV Roadies 5.0 — grabbing eye balls like no other show. But it is a spill of another kind that has just raised mercury levels higher.

Allegedly, the name of the winner was recently leaked out on one of the internet sites. While most of the sites and online posts, declare Ashutosh the winner, some other sites say it is Nihal. The on-screen drama seems to have rubbed off on the young fans of this reality show who have been spreading news of these alleged leaks through the internet. Or is it just a publicity gimmick by MTV to promote their show?

Apart from this, it was also reported that the channel postponed the grand finale by a week. This further gave rise speculation whether the real winner of the show would be voted out now, just to prove the rumours wrong.

Nikhil Chinappa, host and judge of the show clears the air. "The winner will remain the winner. And nothing has been delayed. The amount of fan following Roadies have has lead to so much speculation and several rumours doing the rounds. This is just a measure of its popularity and nothing else," he says.

Raghu Ram, the creator and producer of the show, rubbishes these claims as mere rumours. "Well, I don't think the winner's name has been leaked because these mere rumours. Even if one of the guesses is right, which is bound to be, considering there are only two contestants left, it's okay."

Raghu further adds that the popularity of the show is the reason behind such speculations. "The cast and the crew are bound by contract and are not supposed to reveal any details. But, I have a feeling that this year the contestants have spoken to people. The bad news is that some details may have been leaked out and the good news is that all these stories are just an indication of the show's popularity. But the best news is that it did not affect the show at all," Raghu adds cheerfully.

The producer in fact seems quite happy about the rumours regarding the show. When he was asked whether there will be a change in the winner now, Raghu exclaimed, "The winner has already won the show and the fact can't be changed because we can't go back to Bangkok and re-shoot everything only because people have made some educated guesses.

Moreover, people have been speculating about the winner even before the day the show was even launched,"

The diplomatic quotes by both Raghu and Nikhil seem to be just a vain attempt to clear the dark clouds of speculation surrounding this season of Roadies.

Even if they are right, the next obvious question arises about the reasons for the final episode being getting delayed?

Nikhil seemed disturbed by this news. "The show has not been delayed and as a judge I have been promoting the show for last four weeks now. I have been announcing since then that the final episode is on May 24. So how can you claim the show has been delayed," he exclaims.

Raghu adds, "I am not delaying the show. We have too much content in our episodes. So, instead of one hour, we shot for two hours in three days."

People may not watch the finale since all the fun is lost after the leak but an angry Raghu claims that he doesn't care about that. "I don't care if they don't watch the finale. Let them spend their whole afternoons searching for the name of the winner on the Net."

The creative MTVians might be pulling yet another publicity stunt to rake in the TRPs. Or perhaps the rumours are true. Intended or unintended, the whole country is surely talking about this leaky chapter. Guess the TRPs will be doing all the talking when the finale will be aired today.

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