Bigg Boss 20: Omar Abdullah says he will vote for Qazi Touqeer
Jammu and Kashmir's chief minister backed the Kashmiri singer to win Salman Khan's show. What he said, and who Qazi Touqeer is two decades after Fame Gurukul.
Bigg Boss 20 has a fan in an unlikely place. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has said he would vote for Kashmiri singer Qazi Touqeer to win Salman Khan’s reality show, if the winner is decided by the public.
“Is this decided through public voting? Then I should vote for him,” Abdullah said in an interview on journalist Shubhankar Mishra’s YouTube channel. He added: “First we won the Ranji Trophy; now if we win Bigg Boss, then it’s a good thing.”
The clip spread quickly, and “bigg boss” was among the top Google searches in Pakistan on Tuesday, where the show has a big following despite airing on Indian TV.
What Omar Abdullah said
Abdullah said he does not watch the show and read about Touqeer’s entry in the newspaper. “I have seen Qazi in one or two concerts; he sings well,” he said. He also recalled that Touqeer “won Fame Gurukul suddenly, and nobody expected it”. He said he had heard that Salman Khan had called Touqeer out over remarks he made about a housemate’s life. The singer has been at the centre of a few arguments in the house.
Who is Qazi Touqeer?
Touqeer, from Kashmir, shot to fame more than 20 years ago when he won the TV singing contest Fame Gurukul, sharing the title with Ruprekha Banerjee. One of the contestants he beat was a young Arijit Singh, who finished sixth and went on to become India’s biggest playback singer. The two have stayed friends, and Arijit has publicly cheered him on.
Bigg Boss 20 is Touqeer’s return to mainstream television after nearly 21 years. He has been in the house for about two months and has become one of its most talked-about contestants, helped by his catchphrase “I am a rockstar, baby”. In the first Weekend Ka Vaar, Salman Khan called him the only “rockstar” in the house.
Can he win?
The winner is decided by audience votes, so a chief minister’s backing and a home-state campaign can matter. Fans online are already calling him a favourite, but the show is only past its eighth week and nominations change every week. Bigg Boss 20 airs on Colors TV at 10:30 PM India time (10 PM in Pakistan).
For Kashmir, the story is about pride as much as TV: a Ranji Trophy title and now a singer from the valley in one of India’s most watched shows.
