IFTA 2026, India’s only people’s choice film and television awards — voting open

Ranveer Singh Beat Saiyaara’s Ahaan Panday by 58 Votes. Men Decided It

By Rohan Jain

Updated on November 3, 2026
IST 10:23 am

Women preferred Ahaan Panday. Men backed Ranveer Singh by more than two to one, and that was enough.

Fifty-eight votes apart

Fourteen actors were on the ballot for Most Popular Actor in a Lead Role (Bollywood) at IFTA 2026.

Ranveer Singh (Dhurandhar) won with 1,112 of 4,086 verified votes, 27.2%. The runner-up, Ahaan Panday (Saiyaara), got 25.8%. The gap was just 58 votes.

Harshvardhan Rane (Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat) was a strong third with 15.0%.

Ranveer Singh, winner of Most Popular Actor in a Lead Role (Bollywood) at IFTA 2026

Who decided it

Every IFTA vote is OTP-verified, one per WhatsApp number per category, and every voter’s age and gender is recorded at sign-up. So this is not a survey sample. It is the full count of who voted.

Women cast 3,190 of the 4,086 votes (78%). Ranveer Singh won 25.6% of women’s votes and 33.4% of men’s.
Voters under 25 cast 76% of all votes. The biggest single group was voters aged 18–24 (2,213 votes).
Men aged 18–24 were Ranveer Singh’s strongest group: 34.3% of their 440 votes went to Ranveer Singh.
58% of Ranveer Singh’s votes came from women under 25 (640 of 1,112).

It did not lead everywhere: voters aged 12–17 preferred Ahaan Panday (27.7%), voters aged 18–24 preferred Ahaan Panday (27.3%) and voters aged 45–59 preferred Ahaan Panday (32.5%).

Women and men picked different winners

Women’s first choice was Ahaan Panday (29.2%), with Ranveer Singh at 25.6%. Men went the other way: 33.4% for Ranveer and 13.3% for Ahaan. Men cast only 21% of the votes, but in a race this close, their margin was decisive.

Ajay Devgn: 1.6% of women’s votes, 3.1% of men’s, about twice as popular with men.
Hrithik Roshan: 2.0% of women’s votes, 3.4% of men’s, 1.7 times as popular with men.
Varun Dhawan: 4.6% of women’s votes, 3.0% of men’s, 1.6 times as popular with women.
Harshvardhan Rane: 13.5% of women’s votes, 20.5% of men’s, 1.5 times as popular with men.

Across IFTA 2026

This was one of five Bollywood wins for Dhurandhar. Ahaan Panday finished second twice at IFTA 2026: here, and in Most Popular Bollywood Debut, behind his Saiyaara co-star Aneet Padda.

In the voters’ own words

Voters could add a reason with their vote. A few of them:

“Superstar”
“Best actor”
“Handsome 😍”

This is not a ratings chart or a critics’ list. It measures which audience turned up to vote, and how hard.

See the full results

IFTA 2026 voting has closed and the results are in. No jury, no award fixing: every winner was decided by India’s votes. See the full Most Popular Actor in a Lead Role (Bollywood) result, or all results: Bollywood · OTT · Television

All vote figures from the IFTA 2026 Most Popular Actor in a Lead Role (Bollywood) results on PolBol (4,086 verified votes, results final). Group figures are as published there; combined totals are added up from the published counts. Nominee images: IFTA 2026.