Bigg Boss Kannada 9: Will senior contestants have an edge over the newbies?

This Saturday (September 24), the much-awaited ninth season of Bigg Boss Kannada’s television version will premiere on Colors Kannada. To be hosted yet again by Kiccha Sudeep, who has been at the helm of affairs since the start of the Kannada version of the popular reality show, the upcoming season will have an interesting mix of contestants. According to the promo of the show and Sudeep’s announcement during the recently-concluded Bigg Boss Kannada OTT season, BBK9 will have 18 contestants, nine of who will be ‘seniors’, or rather, participants of earlier seasons. This batch of seniors will include the top four winners of the recently-concluded first-ever OTT season, Roopesh Shetty, Rakesh Adiga, Aryavardhan Guruju and Sanya Iyer. The promo features Vaishnavi Gowda, Anupama Gowda, Deepika Das and Prashant Sambargi, although everyone but Vaishnavi are shown heading to the Bigg Boss house with packed bags. The buzz on social media is that Krishi Thapanda and Bhoomi Shetty are the other two who will complete the seniors’ batch. There are rumours that Divya Uruduga could also be on the show.

Given that audiences are familiar with half of the contestants and how they would behave in the Bigg Boss house or do tasks, etc., the question that netizens have is whether the seniors have an edge over the newbies. “The showrunners have chosen popular TV celebrities and social media influencers to make up the newbies’ quota. So, most of them already have a dedicated fan following, who will vote for them. However, having said that, on a show like Bigg Boss Kannada, it also matters how you behave in the house, interact with other participants, perform the tasks, etc., so, on those aspects the seniors may have an upper hand, because they are familiar with how the show works and how they need to ‘play and stay in the game’. The newbies will need a couple of weeks to get accustomed to that, but Bigg Boss has eliminations right from the first week, which barely gives them to get a hang of life in the house or for fans to judge them. The seniors will take to the show like fish to water,” says a former contestant on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, according to the latest, the newbies list of contestants will include social media influencer Bhumika Basavaraju (netizens say the fact that the started following Colors Kannada business Head Parameshwar Gundkal is proof that she will be on the show), superbike racer Sandesh Prasannakumar, road racing and rallying champion Aishwarya Pissay, actors Supritha Sathyanarayan, Abhinav Vishwanathan, Ramola, Rajini Rajju, news anchor Jahnavi Karthik and RJ Sunil.