Kasautii Zindagii Kay 2 Would Still go on if Parth Had Stayed: Aashish Bhardwaj

On October 3, Ekta Kapoor’s revival of her famous show Kasautii Zindagii Kay will wrap up once again, this time permanently. The show went on a hiatus earlier this year, like every other show, due to the coronavirus pandemic. The shoot resumed after the entertainment industry put in place some new protocols to allow shoots during the COVID-19 crisis but KZK 2 still had other issues, both before and following the unlock.

First, when the male lead Parth Samthaan (Anurag Basu) contracted COVID and shoot had to be stalled. Following this the two female leads, Erica Fernandes (Prerna) and Aamna Sharif (Komolika), both chose to shoot from home. Later, Parth handed in his resignation.

Actor Aashish Bhardhwaj, who plays the role of Mohnish on the show, recently spoke to E-Times and ventured a few guesses on why the show has been failing. “The show’s TRPs dipped as there were a few replacements initially, like Aamna Sharriff replaced Hina Khan, who played the popular character of Komolika and then Karan Singh Grover was replaced by Karan Patel as Mr Bajaj.” He credited the replacement of the key characters as one of the reasons for the dip in the show’s popularity.

Aashish added that the news of Parth, playing the central character of Anurag Basu, quitting the show might have irked the fans. In his opinion, if all these things didn’t happen, the revival would have run for many years, like the original show.

The first season of KZK ran from 2001 to 2008 with over 1,400 episodes and launched the careers of Shweta Tiwari and Cezzane Khan. The revival started in 2018 and has around 455 episodes till this year.

The original show, as well as the current version, have dedicated Anurag and Prerna fans. It’s understandable that their replacement wouldn’t sit well with them.

As reported in the Mumbai Mirror, Parth would not return no matter how much the production convinced him. He wants to focus on his health and betterment following the COVID-19 infection. It was also reported that neither Parth nor Erica wants to play the role of parents on-screen.