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'They say an item girl can never be an icon'

RAKHI SAWANT is upset with Karan Grover and Kavita Kaushik —her fellow contestants on TV dance show "Nach Baliye 3" —as they did an act based on her unpleasant kissing controversy with singer Mika.

Rakhi went visibly pale when Karan and Kavita started their jig on STAR Plus' competition. She said that if they had warned her, she would have stayed backstage.

"I went blank when I saw them. My heartbeat stopped. If they had warned me about what they were going to do I wouldn't have come to watch from the audience," Rakhi told IANS.

"I became so tense anything could've happened to me. Then what would have happened to my act which followed this piece of unauthorised dirty dancing?" Rakhi had made headlines when she accused singer Mika of forcibly kissing her.

Rakhi openly accuses her colleagues of catty behaviour.

"They're trying their best to demoralise me. If it's not fellow dancers like Karan, then it's Kashmira Shah giving me hell. The kind of names and comments I get to hear would make any other girl give up."

She says her partner is her only source of inspiration.

"My partner Abhishek tells me to ignore all this. But when you rehearse for a week and then just before your act you're shaken by someone trying to belittle you, then it does seem like sabotage. Karan and his partner could have done anything in the 'ched-chad' special. Why pick on something from my life?"

"In the same episode Abhishek and I replicated Gopi Krishna and Sandhyaji's immortal dance number 'Ja re hat natkhat' from 'Navrang'. There's a decency to be observed. I felt very bad. If the other contestants don't have it in them to do something so classical, why be openly jealous? I praise the other contestants. No one encourages me. Very frankly, Abhishek and I don't need anyone's encouragement."

She has currently set aside her entire career for "Nach Baliye".

The item queen says this is not the first time she has been subjected to demeaning comments.

"There's no time for anything else. We get one week to prepare for every episode. Within that period we've to make sure we're the best. And then the last thing I need is for other contestants to pull me down. They say an item girl can never be an icon. That really hurts. Am I not a human being? Don't I have dreams? All the contestants are secretly working against me all the time."