Was there a rivalry between Aishwarya Rai and Sushmita Sen during Miss India 1994? Their co-contestant Maninee De answers

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Maninee De shared how Sushmita Sen pushed her to be a part of the contest in an interview to Siddharth Kannan. She said, “Firstly, for a girl who was never told she is conventionally beautiful, going on India’s premiere contest was in itself a big deal. I must thank Sushmita Sen, she was working with my first ex-husband, and we met and became very good friends. She used to recite poetries to me at 2 am in the night and would say that I was one of those few people who would understand what she was writing. She dropped me at the Claridges Hotel and ordered me to apply, so the last form filled out for Miss India in 1994 was mine.

“If Sushmita hadn’t been at that time… the universe sent her to me as a catalyst. She told me I am very exotic and my USP is that I spoke very well. From there the journey began,” she said. Further, Maninee also spoke about her meeting with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and said, “I had never gone to Goa, so I was thrilled that I was going there. We just left for Goa to have fun, and when we reached there, we saw Aishwarya Rai and told ourselves that we were mad to compete with her. But what a lovely girl she has been, she was so gracious; not only is she beautiful but also very good-natured. I won the Miss Congeniality contest that time and she walked up to me saying that she voted for me because I was genuinely the sweetest of the lot. I was so taken aback because there was a wedge between these Delhi and Mumbai girls. We felt marginalized at that time, but history speaks for itself, the Delhi girls achieved what they had to.”

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Addressing the reports about the rivalry between Aishwarya and Sushmita, Maninee De called it ‘media created’ and said, “There was nothing like that between them, this was very media created. Both of them were so dignified, we were in our 20s. To my knowledge there was no rivalry at all. This was media created because Sushmita was the underdog, when we went from Delhi we were told Aishwarya was a model for a popular soap brand so what would we even do there. But there was nothing like that, especially from what I have witnessed.”

When Kannan asked Manninee if they were good friends with her, the actress shared, “The people you meet and work with are your colleagues, there is a difference between colleagues and friends. We were co-contestants and in that capacity, they were very nice to me. Later when I met Aishwarya during the screening of Drona, I was leaving and she called out to me and it was so heartening. I felt shy, but she hugged me with so much love and met my daughter too.”

Maninee De has been a part of popular shows like Jassi Jaise Koi Nahi, Shaka Laka Boom Boom, Gulmohar Grand, etc. She has also starred in films like Krrish, Fashion, and Student Of The Year. Maninee De was last seen in the web series Campus Diaries.