Lucknow Press
The controversy over Miss South Africa is yet to subside and a new beauty queen contest is making international headlines under the shadow of controversies. This was seen recently in the South Pacific country Fiji. It is well known that a large number of people of Indian origin live in Fiji.
One such Fiji Indian and MBA student, 24-year-old Manshika Prasad, recently won the crown of Miss Universe Fiji. The entire process went smoothly, there was no controversy that night after winning. The next day Manshika Prasad kept doing photography, travelling and all other formalities with the judges of the jury.
Two days later, the whole situation changed for Manshika Prasad when the Miss Universe Fiji (MUF) organization issued a statement saying that there was a serious violation of rules during the Miss Fiji competition. There was fraud during voting and Manshika was made the winner because the event manager was going to get financial benefit from it. Therefore, a new revised result will be released soon. Within a few hours, Manshika was told that her crown is taken back and she will not be able to represent Fiji in the Miss Universe competition in November.
Runner-up declared to be the winner
Instead, 30-year-old Nadine Roberts, who was the runner-up in the competition, was declared Miss Universe Fiji. Nadine is a model and property developer in Sydney, Australia. Her mother is from Fiji. This development shocked Manshika Prasad. She distanced herself from social media by issuing a statement and said that a lot has happened behind the scenes which the public is not aware of. On the contrary, Nadine thanked Miss Universe Fiji for taking immediate action to correct the discrepancy and releasing the revised result.
How the crown was snatched
According to the BBC report, Manshika won the competition 4-3 in a panel of seven judges. The next day she went on a boat trip with the judges but the winner was not officially announced till then. But one judge Riri Frabiani did not go on that tour. She was the representative of Lux Projects company. It is a property development firm. This company had obtained the license to conduct the Miss Universe title in Fiji from the Miss Universe Organization (MUO). Therefore, one of its representatives was also included in the panel of 7 judges.
Actually, buying a license to conduct such a competition in a country is a very expensive task, that is why this kind of Miss Universe Fiji contest could be organized in Fiji for the first time after 1981. After buying the franchise license, the company becomes the organizer and organizes the event in the concerned country and sells sponsors, sponsorships and tickets to cover its expenses.
According to BBC, when Riri Fabriani did not go, the other judge Melissa White who shared the room with her asked her the reason, then Riri said that her boss Jamie has given her a lot of work for today. Therefore she will not be able to go on the boat trip. Overall, by the evening it became clear that Lux Company was not happy with the results of the competition. It was said in its press release that the person who has obtained the license of this competition also has the right to vote and the operators of the platform did not count his vote. That is, apart from the panel of 7 judges present on the stage, this eighth vote should also be counted, which belongs to the person who has obtained the license of the competition (Lux Projects).
Along with this, it was also said that that vote will be considered decisive and this eighth vote was given by her to Nadine Roberts. In this way, the competition became a 4-4 tie between Manshika Prasad and Nadine Roberts, but due to the decisive vote of Lux, Nadine was declared the winner.
