Perhaps for the first time ever, the National Film Awards ceremony has been the sight of a massive boycott. Over 65 winners have given the event a miss over the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind's decision to only attend the ceremony for an hour and hand over just 11 awards. The rest of the awards was given out by the I&B Minister Smriti Irani. This decision has not gone down well with many of the winners who skipped the event, leading to many empty seats in the hall.

Among the attendees who turned up for the event to collect the awards were late Sridevi's family, consisting of husband Boney Kapoor, and daughters Janhvi and Khushi. Sridevi, who passed away a couple of months back, had got the National Award for the Best Actress for her performance in Mom posthumously. Her family had arrived to receive the award on her behalf. Janhvi was wearing one of her mother's sarees for the special occasion.

As they collected the award for their mother, the girls were left teary-eyed for the moment. Here's the video of the family collecting the Best Actress award for Sridevi -

Late actor and MP Vinod Khanna also received the Dadasaheb Phalke award (the real one). His wife Kavita and son Akshaye Khanna had collected the award from the President on his behalf.

Returning to the issue of the winners who skipped the event, it is speculated that many do not want to accept an award from Smriti Irani, and had, therefore, insisted on the President to give out all the award. Expect this to snowball into a huge issue soon.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 03, 2018 06:55 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).