Madhuri, Sridevi enthral; Gurmeet Chaudhary clinches ‘Jhalak…’ trophy!

Zeenews Bureau

Mumbai: In a glittering grand finale, Gurmeet Chaudhary and his cheoreographer Shampa were declared the winners of dance reality show ‘Jhalak Dikhla Jaa’ season 5 on Sunday. In front of the three celebrity judges, Madhuri Dixit, Karan Johar and Remo D’Souza, Gurmeet was announced as the winner while TV actress Rashmi Sandhu was declared as the first runner up. The three finalists, Gurmeet, Rashmi and Ritwik Dhanjani were pitted against each other on Saturday and were given scores by the judges one last time on their performance. The winner was declared based on the maximum number of votes the contestant got combined with his final scores. Incidentally, actress Isha Sharvani, who had been a consistent performer on the show made it to the finals despite an injured arm, but she dropped out of the finale after she fell at one of her friends` place and bruised her face, making way for Rashmi to enter the finale. The show kicked on June 16, with 13 contestants including Gurmeet, Isha, Pratyusha Banerjee, Giaa Manek, Talat Aziz, Bharti Singh, ArchanaVijaya, Shibani Dandekar, Jayati Bhatia, Darsheel Safary, Sanath Jayasuriya, Sushil Kumar and Ravi Kishan. Three wild card entries - Karan Wahi, Rashmi Desai and Rithvik Dhanjani - were introduced midway. While dancers Rithvik and Rashmi garnered appreciation for giving flawless performances, non-dancer Gurmeet also proved his dancing prowess with each performance up till the semi-finals. His popularity among the TV viewers for his portrayal of Ram in "Ramayana" perhaps made him a hot favourite. The finale also saw some sizzling performances by the former contestants and the choreographer Remo. Actress Madhuri Dixit performed the traditional Lavani dance to a number of popular Marathi songs. But the highlight of the show clearly was Madhuri and Sridevi’s act. The two divas of Bollywood created history of sorts when they shared the stage for the first time and danced to each other’s hit songs. Sridevi was on the sets to promote her upcoming film ‘English Vinglish’. The winning couple were awarded Jhalak trophies and Rs 40 lakh the prize money.