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

He took 25.1% of 2,279 verified votes and led with women, men and every age group under 45.

Three comics above 17%

Nine nominees were on the ballot for Most Popular Performance in a Comic Role (Bollywood) at IFTA 2026.

Akshay Kumar (Housefull 5) won with 572 of 2,279 verified votes, 25.1%. The runner-up, Kapil Sharma (Kis Kisko Pyaar Karoon 2), got 19.0%. The winning margin was 138 votes.

Housefull 5 had three nominees: Akshay Kumar, Riteish Deshmukh and Nana Patekar. Together they took 42.5% of the vote.

Akshay Kumar, winner of Most Popular Performance in a Comic 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 1,804 of the 2,279 votes (79%). Akshay Kumar won 24.5% of women’s votes and 27.4% of men’s.
Voters under 25 cast 78% of all votes. The biggest single group was voters aged 18–24 (1,268 votes).
Men aged 18–24 were Akshay Kumar’s strongest group: 31.2% of their 260 votes went to Akshay Kumar.
64% of Akshay Kumar’s votes came from women under 25 (368 of 572).

It did not lead everywhere: voters aged 45–59 preferred Varun Dhawan (21.6%).

With 2,279 votes, this is one of the smaller IFTA 2026 categories, so read the smaller groups (such as voters over 45) with care.

Same winner, different second choices

Akshay Kumar won with women (24.5%) and with men (27.4%). Both put Kapil Sharma second (20.0% of women, 15.3% of men).

Arshad Warsi: 6.2% of women’s votes, 10.6% of men’s, 1.7 times as popular with men.
Riteish Deshmukh: 12.8% of women’s votes, 8.2% of men’s, 1.6 times as popular with women.
Nana Patekar: 5.0% of women’s votes, 8.0% of men’s, 1.6 times as popular with men.
Paresh Rawal: 6.8% of women’s votes, 10.1% of men’s, 1.5 times as popular with men.

Across IFTA 2026

This was Housefull 5’s only IFTA 2026 win. Kapil Sharma (Kis Kisko Pyaar Karoon 2) was second with both women and men.

In the voters’ own words

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

“He is most intertaining and he is a gem 💎. I loved his role ♥️♥️♥️”
“Yes khiladie”
“Akki is most popular”

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 Performance in a Comic Role (Bollywood) result, or all results: Bollywood · OTT · Television

All vote figures from the IFTA 2026 Most Popular Performance in a Comic Role (Bollywood) results on PolBol (2,279 verified votes, results final). Group figures are as published there; combined totals are added up from the published counts. Nominee images: IFTA 2026.