I don't know if Himmy thinks of his love story as "trying to tarnish Sumedha's image," but I do think he is well aware that he is exploiting her on television because of her sex appeal, and Sumedha is clearly not a fan of Himesh's love story. She puts on a poker face and seems to be biting her tongue every time HR opens his mouth about Aneek's so-called love for her.
As much as HR wants to salivate over Aneek himself, Sumedha doesn't seem to find Aneek attractive in that way, and I can't blame her. As a straight woman, I must say Aneek is not the kind of male attention a girl dreams of getting on television broadcast around the world 😆.
Aneek is sweet and likable in a clueless, bumbling fool sort of way, but even if he really did have the hots for Sumedha, he does not know how to woo a gal to say the least. Sumedha's body language was very telling. She was practically flinching whenever Aneek moved in toward her during his clumsy dance routine. With Amanat, well, he was not aggressive and throwing himself at her the way Aneek was, so she seemed a little less tense.
Himesh instigating all this drama may or may not rise to the level of sexual harrassment, I think that may be too strong a term here, but to some extent it is demoralizing to turn one girl in a singing context into the object of some cooked-up love story, even if it is all in jest. When the focus should be on what a talented singer Sumedha is, it is instead on what a barbie doll she is. Which is especially annoying since it seems like a foregone conclusion that girls have a harder time making it to the finals on this show than the guys do.
One thing is for sure, this love story is not making Aneek look like a "rock star" or a ladies man.