Harshita.. (Red Dress)


Harshita Saxena voluntarily surrendered the title of Pantaloons Femina Miss India Earth 2008 and withdrew her candidature from the pageant following the allegations raised by Gladrags officials.

Speaking on the occasion, Saxena said "I apologise to the officials of Pantaloons Femina Miss India 2008 and voluntarily surrender the title of Pantaloons Femina Miss India Earth 2008. It was an oversight on my part, the Gladrags contract started from 13th of March 2006 and was valid for two years, however there was a clause which mentioned that the contract would commence on the day of the event being staged which was 8th April 2006, hence technically the contract expired on 8th April 2008 just three days after the finals of Pantaloons Femina Miss India 2008. It was extremely unprofessional on the part of Gladrags to bring this up now as they have not given me any work in the past two years of my association. They did not give me a copy of the contract although they had promised to provide me the same. Since I had read the contract 2 years back I did not remember the exact dates. I tried getting in touch with the Gladrags officials to confirm the expiry date, however there was no response from them. Also I would have appreciated the fact if Gladrags would have approached me directly rather than me being informed via the media. I would want to tell all future aspirants to be careful while signing any such contracts and to ensure that they are allowed to participate in Femina Miss India as it is the only prestigious beauty pageant in our country and at such point any prior contract should be null & void."

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Sameer Soni, National Director of FMI said "We accept the withdrawal of Harshita Saxena. It is unfortunate that such an incident has occurred. Ideally, the officials at Gladrags should have raised this issue earlier; as there were 21 days of training before the finale and there was enough and more media exposure of the girls to the world at large during the training period. I really feel sad for Harshita as just for an unexpired period of 3 days she had to let go of her title."

Harshita Saxena also said, "I would like to thank the Femina Miss India Team, the Times of India Group for the experience that I am taking back with me. I would especially like to thank Mr. Sameer Soni & Mr. Hemant Trevedi for being so supportive of me in this dilemma. Although I am withdrawing & surrendering my crown, I still feel like a winner and this would not stop me from coming back next year."


(News Adapted From Net)