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

Himanshu Awasthi Won Most Popular TV Actor With 15,396 Votes for Rimjhim

By Rohan Jain

Updated on November 3, 2026
IST 10:24 am

He took 54.6% of 28,205 verified votes and led in every age group, with women and with men.

More than everyone else combined

Sixteen actors were on the ballot for Most Popular Actor in a Lead Role (Television) at IFTA 2026. One of them took more votes than all the others combined.

Himanshu Awasthi (Rimjhim – Choti Umar Bada Safar) won with 15,396 of 28,205 verified votes, 54.6%. The runner-up, Syed Raza Ahmed (Tu Juliet Jatt Di), got 19.7%. The winner’s share was 2.8 times the runner-up’s.

No one else passed 7%. Ashish Dixit (Pati Brahmachari) was third with 6.3%.

Himanshu Awasthi, winner of Most Popular Actor in a Lead Role (Television) 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 23,927 of the 28,205 votes (85%). Himanshu Awasthi won 55.9% of women’s votes and 46.7% of men’s.
Voters under 25 cast 77% of all votes. The biggest single group was voters aged 18–24 (14,363 votes).
Women aged 12–17 were Himanshu Awasthi’s strongest group: 71.6% of their 6,753 votes went to Himanshu Awasthi.
76% of Himanshu Awasthi’s votes came from women under 25 (11,690 of 15,396).

Himanshu Awasthi led in every age group with at least 30 voters.

Same winner, different second choices

Himanshu Awasthi won with women (55.9%) and with men (46.7%). Both put Syed Raza Ahmed second (20.2% of women, 16.5% of men).

Kanwar Dhillon: 1.3% of women’s votes, 4.3% of men’s, 3.4 times as popular with men.
Sheezan Khan: 1.6% of women’s votes, 3.6% of men’s, 2.3 times as popular with men.
Ashish Dixit: 5.5% of women’s votes, 10.6% of men’s, about twice as popular with men.
Parth Samthaan: 4.5% of women’s votes, 2.5% of men’s, 1.8 times as popular with women.

Across IFTA 2026

Himanshu Awasthi’s win was one of six for Rimjhim – Choti Umar Bada Safar across the nine Television categories: TV Serial, Actor and Actress in a Lead Role, TV Jodi, and Actor and Actress in a Supporting Role. This category drew 28,205 votes, the second-largest of IFTA 2026.

What the result measures

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 (Television) result, or all results: Bollywood · OTT · Television

All vote figures from the IFTA 2026 Most Popular Actor in a Lead Role (Television) results on PolBol (28,205 verified votes, results final). Group figures are as published there; combined totals are added up from the published counts. Nominee images: IFTA 2026.