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

Young voters gave Dhurandhar’s Akshaye Khanna more than half their votes. From 35 up, Brijendra Kala led.

More than everyone else combined

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

Akshaye Khanna (Dhurandhar) won with 1,564 of 2,975 verified votes, 52.6%. The runner-up, Brijendra Kala (Sitaare Zameen Par), got 10.8%. The winner’s share was about five times the runner-up’s.

Dhurandhar had two nominees here, Akshaye Khanna and Sanjay Dutt. Together they took 59.8% of the vote.

Akshaye Khanna, winner of Most Popular Actor in a Supporting 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 2,129 of the 2,975 votes (72%). Akshaye Khanna won 55.8% of women’s votes and 44.3% of men’s.
Voters under 25 cast 70% of all votes. The biggest single group was voters aged 18–24 (1,491 votes).
Men aged 18–24 were Akshaye Khanna’s strongest group: 59.5% of their 338 votes went to Akshaye Khanna.
61% of Akshaye Khanna’s votes came from women under 25 (959 of 1,564).

Age split this result in two. Akshaye Khanna led every group under 35. From 35 up, Brijendra Kala (Sitaare Zameen Par) took over: 37.6% of voters aged 35–44, 65.0% of those aged 45–59 and 68.8% of the 60-plus group.

Same winner, different second choices

Brijendra Kala had the biggest gender gap of any nominee here: 27.9% of men’s votes but only 4.1% of women’s, making him men’s second choice.

Ravi Kishan: 3.7% of women’s votes, 1.4% of men’s, 2.6 times as popular with women.
R. Madhavan: 4.6% of women’s votes, 2.0% of men’s, 2.2 times as popular with women.
Nana Patekar: 7.0% of women’s votes, 4.1% of men’s, 1.7 times as popular with women.
Pankaj Tripathi: 6.2% of women’s votes, 3.6% of men’s, 1.7 times as popular with women.

Across IFTA 2026

Akshaye Khanna won twice at IFTA 2026, both for Dhurandhar. He was also voted Most Popular Performance in a Negative Role, with 49.7%.

In the voters’ own words

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

“Legend OG actor”
“A great actor, who got a chance after a long time.”
“Best supporting actor”

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

All vote figures from the IFTA 2026 Most Popular Actor in a Supporting Role (Bollywood) results on PolBol (2,975 verified votes, results final). Group figures are as published there; combined totals are added up from the published counts. Nominee images: IFTA 2026.