While almost the entire industry has criticised Ashutosh Gowarikar for saying on stage that Aishwarya Rai should have won the IIFA Best Actress award for her performance in “Jodhaa Akbar” and not Priyanka Chopra for “Fashion”, it has now emerged that the poor guy was indeed obliging Jaya Bachchan.


For those not in the know, it so happened that after Priyanka collected her award at the ceremony in Macau on June 13, it was Ashu went on stage to receive his Best Director award for “Jodhaa Akbar”.

The first thing that he uttered after taking the mike was, “Priyanka, I love you, but I don't know how you got the award for Best Actress when Aishwarya was also nominated in the same category for ‘Jodhaa Akbar’.”

He further added, “Maybe it is because you are very hard-working and she is a natural.”

But when he realised that he was goofing up he said, “Jayaji was just asking me the same thing," pointing to Jaya Bachchan, who was standing next to him.

Subsequently, everyone thought he had just dragged Jaya into the picture as cover-up for his own mistake. However, in an interview, Jaya Bachchan has admitted that she did ask Ashu to say what he did, and that too in public.

"It is being presumed that Ashutosh unnecessarily mentioned my name regarding Aishwarya's omission from the awards. The fact is, I suggested he bring up the question on stage. We were discussing why Aishwarya had not been given any award for 'Jodhaa Akbar'. I suggested Ashutosh bring up the matter. When he mentioned my name, he wasn't doing anything wrong," Jaya has said.

“I wonder why Aishwarya's fine performance [in ‘Jodhaa Akbar’] was ignored,” she has also said, adding that she has not seen “Fashion”.

May be she should see the movie to get the answer.