| Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2007 | |
|---|---|
| Season 2007 | |
 Logo | |
| Starring | Ismail Darbar Himesh Reshammiya Bappi Lahiri Vishal–Shekhar |
| No. of episodes | 44 |
| Release | |
| Original release | 4 May (2007-05-04) – 13 October 2007 (2007-10-13) |
Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2007 is an Indian television singing competition that premiered on 4 May 2007 and ran until 13 October 2007. It is the 2nd instalment of the "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge" series and the 4th public voting competition in the "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa" series. Chronologically, the show is preceded bySa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs, however systematically it is followed bySa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005. The show features two of the previous mentors,Himesh Reshammiya andIsmail Darbar, and two new mentors to the Challenge series,Bappi Lahiri andVishal–Shekhar.Shaan did not return to host and was replaced byAditya Narayan, son ofplayback singer,Udit Narayan.
The new logo is significantly different from the 2005 logo. It featuresheadphones on aglobe to represent itself as an international competition, instead of a previous logo consisting of a portrayal of a duet singing.
On 13 October at theGrand Finale, the show broke voting records with a collection of 10,61,44,354 (10.6crores or 106million) votes worldwide from 181 countries. In the final tallyAneek Dhar was declared the winner with 3,65,89,134 votes,Raja Hasan as the 1st runner-up with 3,52,40,963 votes andAmanat Ali as the 2nd runner-up with 3,43,14,257 votes.
TheGharana (literally "House") is utilised similarly to aHouse system used in schools andcolleges. The contestants of the gharanas have been chosen by the mentors themselves.
Two of the four previous gharanas that were featured onSa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005 have been replaced –Aadesh Shrivastava's Jai Ho andJatin–Lalit's Dum have now been replaced with "Josh" and "Hit Squad". The following list represents the initial 32 contestants who were chosen by the mentors and in the order they were introduced.
In addition, there was another Gharana called the Eklavya Gharana – it was a "reserved force" of eight singers. The exact purpose of this Gharana was not mentioned during the initial days of the show but soon it was determined that it basically prevented a Gharana from getting eliminated in the initial rounds. The contestants in this Eklavya Gharana performed on the 2nd episode of the show. Later on, each week two contestants from this Gharana were chosen to join a mentor's Gharana after that mentor has had any of his contestants eliminated the previous week.
The only two contestants who never appeared in the competition after their performance on 5 May 2007 were:
Just as was done in previousSa Re Ga Ma Pa shows, the idea of themes is featured to determine the contestants' versatility and ability to sing different genres.
TheMahagurus appeared as judges in the semi-finals. They "commented" and decided who the top contestants were on the performance episodes and also decided who got eliminated on the "elimination day" during the initial rounds.
The "Bramhastra" round ran through Week 9. This round basically allowed the public to bring an eliminated contestant back into the competition. The gharana who received the Bramhastra got to choose two eliminated contestants for the finals (Agnipariksha).Vishal–Shekhar received this Bramhastra and they chose 6 contestants. The six contestants were:
Of the six contestants that were chosen by Vishal–Shekhar, the two contestants with most votes from the public and subsequently elected and brought back into the competition were:
The 14 finalists were announced at the end of the episode broadcast on 29 June 2007. That year, Aneek Dhar and Abhijeet Kosambi, winners of the regional spinoffs,Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Bangla andSa Re Ga Ma Pa Marathi, got direct entry as finalists. Their direct entry into the finals caused some controversy that Ismail Darbar had the courage point out. However, afterHimesh Reshammiya pleaded with Ismail, the issue dissolved. SeeAneek-Abhijit controversy section for further details.
These are the names of the top fifteen finalists listed in order.
Eliminated Contestants:
Contestants are in alphabetical order by last name, then by reverse chronological order of elimination.
| Female | Male | Top 14 | Top 24 | Top 32 |
| Contestant did not perform during that week |
| Top contestant of the week |
| Stage: | Top 32 | Top 24 | |||||||||||
| Elimination Day: | 12/5 | 19/5 | 26/5 | 2/6 | 9/6 | 16/6 | 22/6* | 23/6* | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Place | Contestant | Gharana | Result | ||||||||||
| Amanat Ali | Yalgaar | Btm 3 | |||||||||||
| Poonam Yadav | Yalgaar | ||||||||||||
| Sumedha Karmahe | Josh | ||||||||||||
| Mussarat Abbas | Rock | Btm 3 | |||||||||||
| Mauli Dave | Josh | Btm 3 | Btm 3 | ||||||||||
| Junaid Sheikh | Hit Squad | Btm 3 | Btm 3 | ||||||||||
| Joy Chakroborty | Rock | Btm 3 | |||||||||||
| Nirupama Dey | Rock | ||||||||||||
| Apurva Shah | Hit Squad | Btm 3 | |||||||||||
| Rimi Dhar | Yalgaar | Btm 3 | |||||||||||
| 11–12 | Raja Hassan | Hit Squad | Btm 3 | Elim | |||||||||
| Saaberi Bhattacharya | Hit Squad | Btm 3 | Btm 3 | ||||||||||
| 13–14 | Reecha Tripaathi | Josh | Btm 3 | Btm 3 | |||||||||
| Sunil Kumar | Josh | Btm 3 | Btm 3 | ||||||||||
| 15–16 | Shresta Banerjee | Rock | Btm 3 | Btm 3 | Elim | ||||||||
| Harpreet Deol | Josh | Btm 3 | |||||||||||
| 17–18 | Sumana Ganguly | Hit Squad | Btm 3 | ||||||||||
| Wasi Efandi | Yalgaar | Btm 3 | Btm 3 | ||||||||||
| 19–20 | Sikandar Ali | Josh | Elim | ||||||||||
| Jyoti Mishra | Yalgaar | Btm 3 | |||||||||||
| 21–22 | Brijesh Shandilya | Yalgaar | Elim | ||||||||||
| Anita Bhatt | Rock | ||||||||||||
| 23–24 | Tushar Sinha | Rock | Elim | ||||||||||
| Meghna Verma | Hit Squad | Btm 3 | |||||||||||
| 25–26 | Sarika Singh | Hit Squad | Elim | ||||||||||
| Imran Aslam | Hit Squad | ||||||||||||
| 27–28 | Desh Gaurav Singh | Yalgaar | Elim | ||||||||||
| Amrita Chatterjee | Rock | ||||||||||||
| 29–30 | Yogendra Pathak | Rock | Elim | ||||||||||
| Koyal Chaterjee | Josh | ||||||||||||
| 31–32 | Sayan Chaudhary | N/A | |||||||||||
| Binoy Mohanty | N/A | ||||||||||||
* During the week of 22 June, there was no separate performance/elimination episode as the week marked the beginning of the "Chakravyuh" phase. However, eight contestants were eliminated that week.
| Stage: | Agnipariksha (Top 14) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Elimination Day: | 13/7 | 20/7 | 27/7 | 3/8 | 10/8 | 17/8† | 24/8 | 31/8 | 7/9 | 14/9 | 21/9 | 28/9 | 5/10 | 13/10 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Place | Country | Contestant | Gharana | Result | |||||||||||||||
| 1 |  | Aneek Dhar | Rock | Btm 2 | Third | Winner | |||||||||||||
| 2 | | Raja Hassan | Hit Squad | Btm 2 | Runner-up | ||||||||||||||
| 3 |  | Amanat Ali | Yalgaar | Btm 3 | Btm 3 | Second | 2nd Runner-up | ||||||||||||
| 4 | | Poonam Yadav | Yalgaar | Btm 2 | Elim | ||||||||||||||
| 5 | | Sumedha Karmahe | Josh | Btm 3 | Btm 2 | Elim | |||||||||||||
| 6 | | Mussarat Abbas | Rock | Btm 3 | Btm 3 | Btm 2 | Elim | ||||||||||||
| 7 | | Mauli Dave | Josh | Btm 2 | Btm 3 | Elim | |||||||||||||
| 8 | | Harpreet Deol | Hit Squad | Btm 3 | Btm 2 | Btm 2 | Elim | ||||||||||||
| 9 | | Junaid Shaikh | Hit Squad | Btm 2 | Btm 3 | Elim | |||||||||||||
| 10 | | Joy Chakroborty | Rock | Elim | |||||||||||||||
| 11 | | Abhjit Kosambi | Josh | Btm 2 | Elim | ||||||||||||||
| 12 | | Nirupama Dey | Rock | Elim | |||||||||||||||
| 13 | | Apurva Shah | Hit Squad | Btm 3 | Elim | ||||||||||||||
| 14 | | Rimi Dhar | Yalgaar | Elim | |||||||||||||||
In the Agnipariksha round, eliminations are based on public voting. Public voting is done through SMS, telephone or online. Each week, the contestant with lowest votes is eliminated.
Additionally, if all the contestants of a Gharana get eliminated, the Gharana also gets eliminated and subsequently the mentor(s) have to leave the show.
† During the week of 17 August, there was no eliminated contestant. That week's votes were added to the votes for the week of 24 August, and Junaid was then eliminated on the episode airing on 24 August.
On 29 June, Aditya Narayan announced that Aneek Dhar and Abhijeet Kosambi, the winners of the regional spinoffs ofSa Re Ga Ma Pa Bangla andSa Re Ga Ma Pa Marathi, would be getting direct entry as a Top 14 finalist. This was a pre decided qualification as it was a part of their respective prizes of winning the regional contests. The viewers of Marathi and Bangla had already seen and heard this announcement at live telecast on stage when Abhijeet Kosambi and Aneek Dhar had won the respective competitions, so in fact there was no need for any controversy in that case. Yet the mentors did not approve of this saying they should not be allowed to enter the competition in the middle and that they should have come from the beginning. Ismail Darbar tried to walk away from the show stalling the shooting of the program.
In the latter episodes, Abhijeet Kosambi was eliminated with the fewest votes. Aneek Dhar is the only contestant inHimesh Reshammiya's Rock 'gharana'. However, Aneek Dhar has been in the Bottom 2 once.Aneek was also the top contestant thrice in the show and eventually ended up winning it all.
TheIndependence Day special episode shot on 10 August (Week 15) ran into a controversy when the issue came up of the Pakistani contestants, Junaid, Mussarat and Amanat refused to sing Indian patriotic songs on 15 August special. All work on the sets was stalled for 6 hours. Finally, the Zee TV officials decided that the Pakistani contestants should sing Pakistani patriotic songs as a solution. However, the next week, the three Pakistani singers were the Bottom Three. It was then decided that no contestant would be eliminated that week and the week's votes would be added to the votes of the following week to decide the next elimination.
Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Ek Shaam Taj Ke Naam was a one-day special episode organised by the SRGMP team as a tribute to theTaj Mahal and also dedicated to request and encourage people to vote for the Taj Mahal as one of theNew Seven Wonders of the World.
As well as performances from the contestants of the season, the special episode also featured performances from contestants of previous SRGMP seasons such asTwinkle Bajpai,Sanchita Bhattacharya, Diwakar Sharma and Sameer Mohammed.