Shekhar Kapur asked National Award jury to not choose Sridevi: It is unfair to other girls
The winners for National Awards for the year 2017 were announced on Friday. Sridevi was named as Best Actress for Mom, which was her last film, and Baahubali bagged three trophies. Newton won Best Film.
However, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur who was the head of the jury, was against Sridevi winning the award.
When Shekhar Kapur announced Sridevi's name, he said, "The best actress is Sridevi for 'Mom' and I promise you it is not my relationship with her. Every morning when I came here, I would ask everyone to vote once again. I would look at all the actors, talk about them and I would say, 'there should be not Sridevi, not Sridevi'! We used take a vote and it always came back to Sridevi.
"It was me who fought that it shouldn't be Sridevi. We are all emotionally involved with Sridevi. I used to say, 'don't give her an award because she died, it is unfair on the other girls. They have also worked hard for 10-12 years, they too have a career.'"
Sridevi, who passed away this February, had an illustrious acting career spanning almost 5 decades. She had acted in Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu films, and was often hailed as India's first female superstar.