The third season of TVF’s Panchayat recently arrived on Prime Video and is gaining massive praise from its massive loyal fanbase. As much as the show became a large source of entertainment for audiences, it also spiked the careers of several deserving actors including Jitendra Kumar and Neena Gupta among others.
However after the second season went on air, rumors were rife that Jitendra Kumar had a massive fallout with TVF. The actor has now reacted to the same in an interview with India Today.
Was there any rift between TVF and Jitendra Kumar?
The Jaadugar actor acknowledged that there was a lot of panic after such news floated and he could see that all over social media. He shared, “The last season ended on Abhishek’s transfer and that also spurred the buzz further. There was a misunderstanding, and honestly, main bhi pareshan ho jata tha (I would get troubled) answering the same questions.”
Jitendra Kumar added that because he was already shooting for the third season, the rumors didn’t affect him largely. He shared, “Given I have had a long association with TVF, people were worried about what went wrong. I understood it’s their love and we just waited for the first trailer to end all speculations.”
Panchayat is set in a fictional village of Phulera and is narrated through Jitendra’s character aka Abhishek Tripathi aka Sachiv ji. The show which also stars Raghubir Yadav, Chandan Roy, Sanvikaa, Durgesh Kumar, Ashok Pathak, Faisal Malik, and Sunita Rajwar among others revolves around a village’s political issues in a tongue-in-cheek manner.
Jitendra Kumar talks about his gradual popularity
Around the same time Panchayat dropped, the actor’s popular movie Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan was also released adding much curiosity to the audience’s mind. He shared, “The youth knew me, thanks to all the sketches I have done before. But with the film, the family audience identified me. So, when Panchayat dropped later, there was more curiosity among them. However, yes, it has been a gradual one and growing with every project that I do.”
Pinkvilla was the first one to report the release date of Panchayat 3 and even sat in an exclusive conversation with the show’s cast where they shared several bits and bytes about themselves and Panchayat.
When Jitendra Kumar spoke about similarities of his character with Shah Rukh Khan’s film Swades
Speaking exclusively to Pinkvilla, Jitendra acknowledged that at the time when they were initially writing and listening to the story, they doubted that there were some similarities between the two characters including the part where Shah Rukh Khan’s character also reluctantly comes to his village just to live for a couple of days.
He further told us, “So, we thought that people might highlight this. But we used it as an inspiration in the show. In Season 1, the friend also refers to this, but we added those elements. But it never appeared as an obstacle. We used it well. So, it never crossed our minds that it is similar to SRK’s character. In fact, I love Swades, so I was really excited to do something in the same zone.”
Other than Panchayat, Jitendra Kumar has also starred in several other TVF shows including Permanent Roommates, TVF Pitchers, Kota Factory, TVF Tripling, and TVF Bachelors among others.
