The following article appears in The Statesman today (January 22) on the fiasco last week. Comments welcome.
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A discordant note
NEW DELHI, Jan. 21. — A reality music competition ended up generating a lot of political heat as votes from the North-east for one contestant were questioned by the audience, while rival contestants sought to know if these votes were representative of the "voice of India".
More drama was added to the show with an alleged phone call from the outlawed militant outfit, Ulfa, threatening other contestants with reprisals if they did not pull out.
In line with the current trend of music talent hunts, Zee TV's Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005 invites viewers to vote for singers of their preference in order to save them from being eliminated. On 19 January, there were four contestants (32 started off in the competition from across 10 cities in India) featuring in the final rounds of elimination.
The fiasco started when one of the contestants was voted out and the voting pattern showed that 80 per cent of the votes bagged by Debojit, the contestant from Silchar, Assam, were from the North-east. The remaining three participants declared in unison that they would pull out from the show as the ''voting was not fair''.
The episode has further fuelled an already raging debate on whether the north-eastern region is treated fairly. A student from Assam, Ms Pranamika Dutta, pursuing her bachelor's degree in music from Miranda House, Delhi University, said: "A lady in the audience questioned the votes that Debojit had bagged from Assam, and her tone was as if Assam is not a part of India." None of the three, Vineet, Hemchandra and Himani, who threatened to withdraw from the show could explain what their grudge was. "What the incident brings to light is that some people do not see the North-east as part of the country," Ms Pallavi Kalita, a student of Daulat Ram College, said. "The North-east has a lot of talent but they do not get enough exposure," she rued.
All the students from Assam based in Delhi, whom The Statesman spoke to, complained about the step-motherly treatment that has been and continues to be meted out to people from the N-E. An executive with the communications department of ZEE TV told The Statesman that a person on the board of the Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005 programme received a threat call from the United Liberation Front of Asom, ''commanding'' that Debojit win the competition.
"The person who claimed to be a commander of Ulfa asked that the other competitors pull out and that has really scared them and their parents," said the executive on condition of anonymity. Mr Gajendra Singh, director and producer of the show, told The Statesman from Mumbai: "Debu is in the final three and that in itself is a tremendous achievement. The public is the best judge and there will be no change in the voting system. Hemchandra too got the maximum number of votes from his home state. Why single out Debojit? Our only focus is talent and that has been so for the past 10 years" .
Mr Singh, however, disclaimed any knowledge of the alleged threat call and said that no member of his team had received any call from Ulfa. Mr Sammujwal Bhattacharya, chairman of the North-east Students' Organisation and adviser of the All Assam Students' Union, has asked all the people of Assam to back Debojit. NESO said it saw a sinister ploy to spoil the chances of Debojit and that everyone from the N-E should support him.
Noted Assamese playback singer Tarali Sharma and Khagen Mahanta,
an eminent artiste, also rallied behind Debojit.
Cricket
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