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

She took 28.7% of 1,624 verified votes. Women carried her, while men and teenagers leaned to Kajol.

Two stars, eight votes apart

Fourteen actresses were on the ballot for Most Popular Actress in a Lead Role (OTT) at IFTA 2026.

Divya Dutta (Chiraiya) won with 466 of 1,624 verified votes, 28.7%. The runner-up, Kajol (Sarzameen), got 19.7%. The winning margin was 146 votes.

The race for second was almost a tie: Kajol (Sarzameen) got 320 votes and Madhuri Dixit Nene (Mrs. Deshpande) got 312.

Divya Dutta, winner of Most Popular Actress in a Lead Role (OTT) 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 1,284 of the 1,624 votes (79%). Divya Dutta won 32.2% of women’s votes and 15.4% of men’s.
Voters under 25 cast 75% of all votes. The biggest single group was voters aged 18–24 (864 votes).
Women aged 18–24 were Divya Dutta’s strongest group: 34.0% of their 709 votes went to Divya Dutta.
72% of Divya Dutta’s votes came from women under 25 (337 of 466).

Teenagers were the exception. Among voters aged 12–17, Kajol finished first with 30.4%.

With 1,624 votes, this is one of the smaller IFTA 2026 categories, so read the smaller groups (such as voters over 45) with care.

Women and men picked different winners

Among men, Kajol was the first choice (17.8%) and Divya Dutta got 15.4%. The biggest gender gap belonged to Aaditi Pohankar (Ziddi Ishq): 12.1% of men’s votes, but only 0.7% of women’s.

Huma Qureshi: 1.4% of women’s votes, 8.5% of men’s, 6.0 times as popular with men.
Radhikka Madan: 6.5% of women’s votes, 10.6% of men’s, 1.6 times as popular with men.

Across IFTA 2026

This was one of two wins for Chiraiya, which was also voted Most Popular Web Series with 27.7% of the vote.

In the voters’ own words

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

“Becouse I like charaiya web series”
“Best actress”
“I like her acting skills 😊”

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 Actress in a Lead Role (OTT) result, or all results: Bollywood · OTT · Television

All vote figures from the IFTA 2026 Most Popular Actress in a Lead Role (OTT) results on PolBol (1,624 verified votes, results final). Group figures are as published there; combined totals are added up from the published counts. Nominee images: IFTA 2026.