President Ramnath Kovind Upset Over National Film Awards Controversy, Mismanagement By I&B Ministry

The President's Office has reportedly conveyed to the PMO its unhappiness over the controversy on Thursday after nearly 60 awardees boycotted the National Awards.

According to reports, the Rashtrapati Bhavan felt that it was not necessary to drag the office of the President into a controversy over the National Awards that happened due to the mismanagement on the part of the ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB).

AFP

The high profile event on Thursday made headlines mostly for wrong reasons, after an unprecedented boycott by awardees, who refused to receive the prize from I&B Minister Smriti Irani and her colleague Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore.

PTI

According to the President's Office, his secretary had in March itself informed the MIB that the President would spend only an hour at the event and, therefore, not give away all the awards.?

The ministry then shortlisted the names 11 awardees who will be honoured by the President, and handed over the names to his office.

All this while the awardees were told that they will be receiving the honour from the President, which has been the usual practice.

It was only on Wednesday, at the rehearsal the awardees were conveyed that the President would give away only a select few awards — 11 of the 70 categories and the rest would be given by Irani and Rathore.

PTI

This led to unprecedented scenes on Thursday with more than 60 of the winners not showing up to receive the awards.