When Roadies 5.0 winner Ashutosh Kaushik agreed with show's creator, Raghu Ram and said, he won due to 'luck, not hard work'

MTV Roadies is one of the earlier reality shows that became a sensation overnight. In the early 2000s, the adventure show had become part of almost every household in the country. The earliest participants on the show include Rannvijay Singha and Ayushmann Khurrana. The show has had several winners over the years and one of the most unique or rather unforgettable wins is Ashutosh Kaushik. 

When Ashutosh won Roadies 5.0, it left the contestants, fans and even the Roadies creator, Raghu Ram, surprised. In the penultimate episode, Raghu had criticised Ashutosh saying he had it easy as he managed to reach the finals even without doing any tasks properly. “Race mein bina daude, finish line pe kaise pahunche yeh koi tumse seekhe. Sachmuch tere bas ki kuch nahin hai. Shuruwat mein tumne bike gadde mein bhed di, langdata langdata yahaan tak aa gaya, aadhe tasks kiye bhi nahin, jin task kiya, mooh kaala karwake aa gaya," he said.

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Later on, Ashutosh went on to win the trophy after the final task. Raghu had asked him and Nihaal to choose former contestants for their team so that they win the show. After the two chose the ex-roadies, Raghu swapped the teams and challenged them to convince one another to perform a couple of tasks and one of the tasks was for a contestant to be slapped by another team member. 

Shambhavi volunteered and went to Ashutosh to be slapped but no one expected that he would actually do it and that too so bad. Raghu expressed shock too and later asked Shambhavi to slap him back. But this part was not featured on the show. When fans questioned the show’s ethics, the creator said that it was a mistake as they had guessed that people would not come forward to actually do them. "Our guess was that people would not come forward to do the task, because there was enough animosity between them… But we were surprised when people started falling over themselves to do the tasks!,” he told Rediff.com. He further said as the girl, Shambhavi volunteered, they couldn’t interfere. "They completely misread the situation and we didn’t anticipate it. I underestimated the power of the show on the psyche of the contestants. But later we apologised to her, made Ashu grovel for days, and got her to slap both Ashutosh and Nihal for good measure,” he said.

In 2021, the winner of the show, Ashutosh sought ‘the right to be forgotten’ and requested that some of his videos, photos and articles about his drunken driving in 2009 be removed from online platforms. He had admitted to Hindustan Times that he was not ready for whatever he was facing in life and that he had won the show due to luck. "I wasn’t ready for that I feel. I kept winning reality shows due to luck majorly and by God’s grace. I hadn’t really worked for it,” he said.