Deepika Padukone is Bollywood's reigning queen 5 years in a row, says Mood Of The Nation poll

The results of The India Today-Karvy Insights Mood of the Nation (MOTN) survey are out, and unlike the actors, the actresses' poll has no surprises. While the actors seemed to have to really battle it out for the top spot - with Akshay Kumar finally beating Salman Khan, and how! - Deepika Padukone comfortably retained her top spot - for the fifth year in a row - with no threat from the others whatsoever. Dippy secured 16 per cent votes at the top.

Second on the popularity poll was Priyanka Chopra with 14 per cent votes, followed by Katrina Kaif on third with 13 per cent and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan on fourth with 10 per cent votes. Anushka Sharma, who topped the list last year in 2019, slipped four spots to No 5 this time, with 9 per cent votes.

Deepika retaining her top spot, as we said, isn't a surprise. She pretty much started the year with a splash, err, Chhapaak! The Meghna Gulzar directorial venture, based on the life of acid-attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal, was both a critical and commercial hit and catapulted Deepika into a place where she started being revered for her movie choices. No mean feat for an actress in the hero-dominated Bollywood, we say. This, apart from the fact that the audience got to see Deepika take up an ambitious project like that of playing an acid-attack survivor, and acing it on screen.

This year, mind you, has been particularly cruel to the entertainment industry. With the novel coronavirus pandemic hitting the world, movie theatres were among the first ones to be shut, affecting the business of cinema massively. No new films released in theatres from the end of March till now, and all of them making a beeline towards OTT platforms. While that ensures there's no dearth of content for the audience, the glamour aspect of the showbiz industry certainly takes a hit. There have been no premiere parties, launches or events, and actors and actresses, like the rest of us, have been locked up in their homes, doing household chores.

Deepika Padukone, in fact, managed to make even that look cool. And perhaps that is another reason why she secured the highest votes too.

FULL RESULTS OF THE INDIA TODAY MOOD OF THE NATION AUGUST 2020

And then, there's, of course, that adorable social-media banter between Dippy and hubby Ranveer Singh that always makes us go aww! Aren't they just the cutest?

Deepika will be seen next in the Ranveer Singh-starrer 83, based on the Indian Cricket Team's historic World Cup win of 1983. Dippy will be essaying the role of Romi Dev, while Ranveer will be seen as Kapil Dev, the Indian team skipper. The film will release this Diwali, along with Akshay Kumar's Sooryavanshi, and hopefully, give us what we've been deprived of for months now - the excitement of a first-day first-show in theatres!

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