No Bollywood bonanza this year

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, December 19

No Bollywood superstar will perform at the closing ceremony of the fifth edition of the Kabaddi world cup, which is going to be held at the newly constructed multipurpose sports stadium at Badal village tomorrow. This is the first instance when the closing ceremony of the tournament will be held without the performance by Bollywood stars.

As per information, Pakistan singer Arif Lohar, Punjabi singer Gippy Grewal, Miss Pooja and Satinder Satti will perform on the occasion.

In the first edition of the cup, superstars Dharamendra and Sunny Deol had enthralled the audience while at the closing ceremony singer Sukhwinder Singh performed.

At the opening ceremony of the second edition of the cup, Shahrukh Khan performed at Bathinda while Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, Chitrangda Singh performed in Ludhiana during the closing ceremony in 2011.

In the third edition of the tournament, Akshay Kumar and Asin had performed during the opening ceremony in the city while Katrina Kaif had performed at the closing ceremony in 2012. In the fourth edition, Priyanka Chopra and Ranveer Singh performed in 2013.

This year, too, Arjun Kapoor and Sonakshi Sinha had performed during the opening ceremony in Jalandhar. Shubhra Bhardwaj, founder and the creative director of Ferriswheel, an event management company responsible for holding the closing ceremony of the tournament, said the closing ceremony had been planned after keeping in mind the venue of the programme. The main attraction of the event will be a performance by the bikers, who have been called from the USA.

She said Bollywood stars Aamir Khan and Anushka Sharma were contacted for the event but they could not come due to their busy schedule. On the budget spent on the closing ceremony, she said they had spent less than the previous editions as no big celebrity was called for the event.