Days after fresh polls filled seats vacated by eleven resigning committee members, actor Rakesh Bedi defended president Poonam Dhillon's record and said the association will pull through.
CINTAA's internal crisis just got its first public defence from inside the old guard. Rakesh Bedi, fresh off the Dhurandhar duology, has told ANI he finds the whole mess sad and hopes it gets sorted soon.
The backdrop matters here. Eleven of the association's twenty-one Executive Committee members walked out recently, eight of them elected members among them. Puneet Issar, Vindu Dara Singh, Mukesh Rishi and Hemant Pandey were among the names who quit. Their complaint, per reports, was pointed: unilateral decision-making, a lack of transparency and misuse of position by president Poonam Dhillon and senior vice president Padmini Kolhapure.
CINTAA didn't sit on the vacancies. Elections were held on September 12, and the results are already in. Upasana Singh topped the poll with 360 votes, Sahila Chadha came in second with 357. Vikas Verma picked up 349, Deepak Parashar 348, Kunickaa Sadanand 312, Varsha Usgaonkar Sharma 306, and Nagma Moraji rounded off the list with 290.
Bedi, hasn't taken sides against Dhillon and Kolhapure. Quite the opposite. He pointed to the 2024 musical tribute marking Raj Kapoor's birth centenary, an event organised under their leadership, as proof of the work the current team has actually put in.
"What is happening is very sad, it shouldn't be happening," he said. "So many actors, I am speaking for myself, take time out and give so much, we dedicate so much time. Why do we do it? From our end, this is a form of social work for the actors."
He went further, revealing something he says he's never said publicly before, that he paid out of his own pocket for the Raj Kapoor show. "Poonam ji and Padmini ji have done so much work, it is not that work hasn't been done," he said. "I even contributed from my own pocket for that show. From my own pocket, I gave money for the benefit of the actors."
On where this all lands, Bedi sounded more hopeful than certain. "The situation will get resolved," he said. "This isn't something that will drag on endlessly, where the feud continues forever, and CINTAA comes to a standstill. It will keep functioning. A settlement will definitely take place."
He was also careful to draw a line between the organisational fight and personal equations. "Leaving aside CINTAA, I share a wonderful equation with every single actor, and it will always remain that way. Everyone has their own viewpoint and perspective. It may not align at this moment, but perhaps it will align in the future."
The new committee is in place. Whether the eleven who walked out feel any differently about Dhillon and Kolhapure's leadership is the question CINTAA still hasn't answered.
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