Kolkata policeman Prashant Tamang is 'Indian Idol 3'

In a grand musical extravaganza, Prashant Tamang from Darjeeling was last night crowned Indian Idol 3 after a count of an estimated 70 million votes received through SMS or mobiles.

Tamang, who is of Nepali origin, is a constable with the Kolkata police.

The grand finale last night saw actor John Abraham name Prashant out of the two finalists, the other being Amit Paul of Shillong, a great favourite in Delhi and the metros.



In addition to a recording contract with Sony BMG, Prashant was awarded a contract worth Rs 10 million with Sony Entertainment Television. Both Prashant and Amit were also awarded one Maruti SX4 and one Sony Ericsson Mobile Phone.

Fireworks lit up the sky as the winner was named after the slip containing his name was taken out by Abraham. In a recent episode of Indian Idol, Abraham had announced his preference for Prashant.

After the announcement, Prashant took the blessings of the judges and then gallantly walked to the front of the stage with Amit, both holding the Sony Trophy presented to the winner. As in the two earlier segments, the finale of the Indian Idol was an all-male affair. Interestingly, Amit had been eliminated in the earlier rounds but was chosen by the judges to be brought back into the competition.

All the judges – lyricist Javed Akhtar, music director Anu Malik, and singers Udit Narayan and Alisha Chinai – were also present on the grand stage at the National Small Industries Corporation Exhibition Ground in Okhla in south Delhi. Others present were the parents of the two finalists, and the presenters Mini Mathur and Hussain.


Both the finalists, Prashant and Amit, also met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandi during two days they were in the capital preparing for the finale. Congress President Sonia Gandhi said that she's proud of the youngsters and they are idols in their own way.



All those who had qualified as the thirteen shortlisted after the piano round presented musical items, including the title song which they have rendered for the John Abraham-Bipasha Basu starrer ‘Goal’.

Others who performed at the finale included Indipop singer Mika and playback singer Sukhwinder Singh, apart from Malik, Alisha, and Udit. Two former winners of Indian Idol, Abhijeet Sawant and Sandeep Acharya also performed. The huge audience was in raptures and stood in their seats as Sukhwinder sang Chak De India.

A special item was the presentation of some of Anu’s best songs by the two finalists, with Anu himself overseeing the music accompaniment. Anu was also a judge in the first two segments of Indian Idol.

Earlier, in interviews to indiantelevision.com, the judges had said the aim of Indian Idol 3 had been to find just one voice who would be ‘Bharat ki shaan’ (Pride of India) and would be proficient in modern, classical, semi-classical, pop and also in dancing. Indian Idol 3 was produced for Sony Entertainment TV by the Delhi-based Miditech headed by Niret and Nikhil J Alva.

The third series commenced as a Friday-Saturday show, starting with 24 contestants and gradually coming down to 13, and then two in the finals to select the lone winner. However, the channel attempted to capitalize on the popularity by extending it to other days of the week towards the beginning and then the end.



The preliminaries were held in 12 cities. The cities are Jodhpur, Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad, Amritsar, Srinagar, Nagpur, Vadodra, Bhopal, Kampur, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai.

Meanwhile, in recent interviews, the finalists said they feel that a major benefit of the music competition, even if they are not selected, would be the new confidence they have gained to face the future.

Launched in Britain as Pop Idol, the Idol series had already traversed to 28 countries in 40 channels all over the world. Sony was bound by the rules set by Pop Idol, but made a change with the introduction of a fourth celebrity judge. However, Shola Rajachandran who heads Media Communications at Sony told indiantelevision.com that this had been done keeping in mind the theme of the week. For example, it was Ila Arun for the week when folk songs were sung, Anil Kapoor when patriotism was the theme, and Sonu Nigam when modern film songs were sung.

Though Prashant is the lone winner, some of the others have already been recorded songs for Bollywood, and Alisha Chinai is recording an album with Meiyang Chang from Dhanbad who is a dentist of Chinese origin and was eliminated towards the end. Alisha had protested and left the show, but had been convinced by Chang to return. (Chang brought a special painting as a gift for Alisha to the finale.)

Sony sources said the top eight or nine participants in each of the first two editions had already been either lapped up by the film industry or achieved success in stage performances in India and overseas. For example, she said Prajakta who had been a finalist in the last edition had already recorded in 17 languages.

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