Odisha Sun Times Entertainment Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Sep 5:

Odisha’s teenage sensation Ananya Sritam Nanda stormed into the last three of India Idol Junior Season II after a scintillating performance at the last elimination round on Saturday night.

ananya nanda

More significantly, with just 24 hours to go for the anointment of the winner of the Season II of this highly popular reality show on Sony, Ananya stayed on top of the heap after the judges’ scores and audience votes were counted.

Saturday’s show, however, marked the end of the road for the highly talented Vaishnav Girish from Kerala. He was surprisingly eliminated leaving both the judges and the audience stunned. Vaishnav’s elimination left Ananya, Nahid Afrin, Nithyashree Venkataramanan as the last three contestants on the show.

"Welcome Back' stars Anil Kapoor, John Abraham and Shruti Hassan, who made a special appearance on the show to promte the film, just could not stop swooning over Vaishnav.

Vaishnav’s elimination, however, could mean good news for Ananya, who now has every chance of going all the way tomorrow.

Ananya won the hearts of judges and audience alike in the episode with her superb rendering of ‘Morni Baga Ma Bole’ from ‘Lamhe’ and ‘Sunta Hai Mera Khuda’ from ‘Pukar’. No wonder she emerged as the Performer of the Day as well.

Her rendering of 'Sunta Hai' made Anil Kapoor, who starred in the film that the song is from, go into raptures. Addressing the parents of the Bhubaneswar girl, who were not present on the sets, the Pukar star said; "If you watching this show from Odisha, I would like to tell you that you have given birth not to a girl, but a piece of diamond."

With audience voting over, it now boils down to how she performs on the Grand Finale on Sunday. But if she performs anything like she has done so far, she could well emerge as the second Odia after Rituraj Mohanty to win a major singing reality show.

The singing sensation took to her Facebook page ( soon after the show was over to thank her supporters. "Thanks a lot for your support. All your blessings took me to Grand Finale Top - 3," said Ananya in a post that had a picture of Lord Jagannath on top.

Ananya, a student of Pokhariput DAV School in Bhubaneswar, has her own fan page where about 24,000 fans ‘like’ her and she keeps them posted about her performances.

It may be noted that the second season of Indian Idol Junior commenced from May 30, 2015 on Sony TV. The season is being aired on Saturday and Sunday nights at 8:30 PM. The series is meant for kids aged between five to 15 years.

The show is hosted by Hussain Kuwajerwala, co-hosted by Asha Negi and is being judged by Hindi movie actress Sonakshi Sinha along with Vishal Dadlani, Shalmali Kholgade and Salim Merchant. Sonakshi, who was away from the show due to her stage shows abroad was back in the judging panel this week adding glamour to the show.

The winner of the show will receive a cash prize of Rs. 25 lakh from Sony Entertainment Television and a host of other prizes from sponsors of the show.