A tuition teacher by profession, 37-year-old Sunmeet Kaur Sawhney became the first female contestant to bag the `5 crore award on television quiz show Kaun Banega Crorepati. After answering the final question, Ms Sawhney didn’t believe for the longest time that she had won the prize money. It was only after quizmaster Amitabh Bachchan stepped down from his seat and hugged her, that she finally grasped the situation.
The episode will be aired on January 11 and 12 in two parts.
“Having played with much conviction throughout the game, Ms Sawhney had two lifelines to spare when she was posed with the final question,” a spokesperson from the show said.
Ms Sawhney opted for the “phone-a-friend” lifeline, but ran out of time even before completing the question and hence decided to exhaust her last lifeline, the “double dip”. Despite running the risk of the prize money coming down to `1,60,000 if she answered incorrectly, Ms Sawhney answered and fortunately won the maximum prize money.
She was accompanied by her husband, a television actor. Ms Sawhney, who has studied up to Class 12, had moved to Mumbai from Punjab after marriage and had been living in a rented apartment with her husband and two children since.
An overwhelmed Ms Sawhney said that her priorities would be to move out of the rented apartment into a house of her own and ensure quality education for her children.
Sushil Kumar from Bihar was the first contestant to win the `5 crore on KBC and Ms Sawhney will be the first woman to accrue such a huge amount on the show. Rahat Taslim from Jharkand, who won `1 crore, was the only other independent female contestant to win the maximum prize money in the fourth season of KBC.