Femina Miss India 2018: Anukreethy Vas from Tamil Nadu was declared the winner of Femina Miss India 2018 pageant held at Dome, NSCI Stadium on Tuesday. In the 55th edition of the pageant, Meenakshi Chaudhary from Haryana finished on the second spot while Shreya Rao from Andhra Pradesh bagged the third position. All the winners were crowned by last year’s winners — Miss World 2017 Manushi Chillar, Miss United Continents 2017 Sana Dua and Miss Intercontinental 2017 Priyanka Kumari.
Anukreethy Vas hails from Tamil Nadu and is a 19-year-old student pursuing BA in French from Loyola college. She was previously crowned fbb Colours Femina Miss India Tamil Nadu. On Tuesday, she beat a total of 30 contestants to bag the top honour in front of a judges panel that included Miss World 2017 Manushi Chhillar.
She will now represent the country in international beauty pageants while the two runners-up will represent the country at Miss Grand International 2018 and Miss United Continents 2018 respectively.
Apart from Manushi Chillar, the judges’ panel also included cricketers K L Rahul and Irfan Pathan, actors Bobby Deol, Kunal Kapoor, Malaika Arora Khan, Bollywood’s top fashion designer Gaurav Gupta and Indian journalist Faye D’Souza.
The event was graced by some top Bollywood celebrities like Director Karan Johar and actor-singer Ayushmann Khurana who hosted the event along with Jacqueline Fernandez and Kareena Kapoor Khan who performed to some Bollywood numbers to entertain the audience and ease out the stress among participants.
Madhuri Dixit Nene was crowned with the Mrs India title.
The participants were divided into four zones for the competition with one mentor each — Neha Dhupia (Femina Miss India 2002) for North Zone, Rakul Preet Singh (Femina Miss India 2011-Runner up) for South Zone, Pooja Chopra (Miss India World 2009) for East Zone and Pooja Hegde (Miss Universe India 2010) for West Zone.
They were dressed in designer Gaurav Gupta’s collection for the finale. Top 12 were shortlisted from the 30 participants to enter the Question & Answer round of the Miss India 2018 finale.