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

Arijit Singh Won Most Popular Male Singer. Men and Over-25s Chose Papon

By Karan Dutta

Updated on November 3, 2026
IST 10:24 am

Arijit Singh took 29.5% of 4,302 votes for Zamaana Lage. Papon, singing for the same film, won men by a wide margin.

One film, two singers

Ten singers were on the ballot for Most Popular Male Playback Singer at IFTA 2026.

Arijit Singh (Metro… In Dino) won with 1,271 of 4,302 verified votes, 29.5%. The runner-up, Darshan Raval (Dhadak 2), got 18.6%. The winning margin was 470 votes.

Both Arijit Singh and Papon (Qayde Se, third with 16.0%) sang for Metro… In Dino. Together they took 45.5% of the vote.

Arijit Singh, winner of Most Popular Male Playback Singer 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 2,929 of the 4,302 votes (68%). Arijit Singh won 34.3% of women’s votes and 19.4% of men’s.
Voters under 25 cast 68% of all votes. The biggest single group was voters aged 18–24 (2,176 votes).
Women aged 12–17 were Arijit Singh’s strongest group: 45.3% of their 669 votes went to Arijit Singh.
67% of Arijit Singh’s votes came from women under 25 (846 of 1,271).

The youngest voters gave Arijit Singh his win: 43.5% of voters aged 12–17 picked him. From 25 to 59, Papon led every age group.

Women and men picked different winners

Men picked Papon: 37.2% of their votes, against 19.4% for Arijit Singh. Among women, Papon got just 6.2%. Women cast 68% of the votes, so their choice decided the result.

Yo Yo Honey Singh: 2.7% of women’s votes, 8.9% of men’s, 3.2 times as popular with men.
Darshan Raval: 22.5% of women’s votes, 10.1% of men’s, 2.2 times as popular with women.
Aditya Rikhari: 3.8% of women’s votes, 1.8% of men’s, about twice as popular with women.
Vishal Mishra: 4.8% of women’s votes, 3.0% of men’s, 1.6 times as popular with women.

Across IFTA 2026

This was the only IFTA 2026 win for Metro… In Dino. Saiyaara had four singers in this category, who together took 24.2% of the vote.

In the voters’ own words

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

“I love his voice he is amazing singer amazing humans ❣️”
“He is the best no words 💞 can describe him”
“Comeback is very nice”

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 Male Playback Singer result, or all results: Bollywood · OTT · Television

All vote figures from the IFTA 2026 Most Popular Male Playback Singer results on PolBol (4,302 verified votes, results final). Group figures are as published there; combined totals are added up from the published counts. Nominee images: IFTA 2026.