Kaushal Manda on Sunday emerged as the winner of the Telugu Bigg Boss season II, hosted by actor Nani.
Kaushal takes home the trophy after he made it to the final with 4 other contestants; Tanish, Deepthi, Geetha Madhuri and Samrat, who gave him a tough fight throughout the nomination process this season. All the other finalists were given a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh.
While rumours were already rife about Kaushal’s victory in the second season, ahead of the final episode, Nani announced the winner in the grand finale on the basis of the votes that the contestant received in the last week that voting lines were open for the public.
Before the show began, Nani took to Twitter to say, "Today is the finale and my last day as Bigg Boss host. I gave it my best. It was an amazing experience! Learnt a lot, unlearned a lot. For the ones who liked me and the show, thank you so much. Means a lot. And for the ones who didn't, we shall meet in theatres".
For the last two episodes before the finale, all evicted contestants returned to the house and spent time with the finalists. On the last episode as well, all the contestants were present on the stage with Nani, as he announced one elimination after the other.
The first contestant to be eliminated was Samrat, followed by Deepti and Tanish. Nani then went into the house to bring out Kaushal and Geetha to the stage. Before announcing the winner, Nani also invited actor Daggubati Venkatesh on stage.
Kaushal gained a huge fan following on social media since the show started with his self-proclaimed fans rallying under the banner of ‘Kaushal Army’.
Some of these self-proclaimed fans have been criticised in the past for indulging in targetted abuse, especially against female contestants on the show. During the last few weeks of the show, many members of 'Kaushal Army' also began taking on Nani on his social media profile, accusing him of being unfair to their favourite contestant.
Big Boss Telugu 2 kickstarted with 16 participants – Geetha Madhuri, Amit Tiwari, Deepti, Tanish, Babu Gogineni, Bhanushree Mehra, Kaushal, Roll Rida, Samrat, Syamala,Kireeti, Deepthi, Tejaswi, Ganesh, Nutan Naidu and Sanjana – amidst much fanfare in June this year.
The first episode created a great deal of buzz among fans despite the fact that several people were skeptical if Nani would be able to follow up Jr NTR, who hosted the first season of the show.
After a slightly slow start, the show soon gained momentum.