Mumbai, Oct. 13: In the end, the Royal Bengal Cub roared the loudest. Aneek Dhar, an 18-year-old from Lake Gardens, beat day-long voting trends by coming up trumps at the Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2007 on Saturday.

The show on Zee TV polled 10.6 crore votes from India and the 132 countries it was telecast in. The recent Indian Idol, which had crowned Prashant Tamang, had polled about 7 crore votes.

Raja Hasan, a contestant from Bikaner, was the favourite to sweep the charts. Even till 2pm, Aneek, according to sources, was trailing him by about 2 lakh votes. At the Andheri Sports Complex where the final was held, the packed crowd was pitching for the Bikaner boy.

The overseas votes were declared first by anchor Aditya Narayan. With 1.5 crore votes, the third finalist, Pakistan’s Amanat Ali, came out on top. Aneek was behind him, with 1.38 crore votes.

But Bikaner, celebrating all day in expectation of a victory, was pinning its hopes on domestic polls.

Not that Calcutta was asleep. “We have heard reports of yagnas happening for Aneek at Bijoygarh, Haridevpur and Kudghat,” Aneek’s father Pankaj Dhar, a psychologist at Alipore Central Jail, had said in the morning.

Amanat was declared second runner-up by actress Vidya Balan, as expected.

But once Akshay Kumar took the mike and read out the numbers — 3,52,40,963 for the first runner-up and 3,65,89,134 for the winner — the chant grew deafening for Raja.

This is when Aneek’s name was announced.

“Ever since Aneek joined the show as the winner of Zee Bangla’s Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, we have been running a campaign for him… Even in the week Calcutta was flooded,” said Biswajit Ghosh, secretary of Ekata Club of Lake Gardens.

For Himesh Reshammiya, Aneek’s mentor, the celebration has just begun. The actor-singer-composer was seen hugging Aneek again and again. “God is great,” he said.

“Sir had asked me not to let him down. Though Raja was a clear front-runner, he told me to go ahead and grab the last opportunity I had on stage,” said Aneek.