Season 8 of Nach Baliye — India’s celebrity couples’ dance reality franchise — brought together ten television pairs on Star Plus for a run through the spring and summer of 2017, culminating in a win for one of the small screen’s most recognizable real-life couples. Here’s the complete breakdown.
Season 8 at a Glance
The season launched April 2, 2017, airing Saturdays and Sundays at 8:00 PM on Star Plus. It was hosted by Karan Tacker, with Karan Patel also associated with hosting duties in the season’s promotional run-up, and actor Ranbir Kapoor reportedly co-hosting for a single promotional episode. The judging panel featured Bollywood actress Sonakshi Sinha, choreographer Terence Lewis, and filmmaker Mohit Suri.
Who Won Nach Baliye Season 8?
Divyanka Tripathi and Vivek Dahiya — a real-life married couple best known from Yeh Hai Mohabbatein — were crowned the winners. Their victory came with a cash prize of ₹35 lakh, a Hero Maestro scooter, and jewelry from Ora, capping off a season in which the pair consistently impressed both judges and audiences with their chemistry and technical performances.
Runner-Up and Top Finishers
Abigail Pande, paired with professional dancer Sanam Johar, finished as first runner-up. Sanaya Irani and Mohit Sehgal — another real-life couple with an established television fanbase — rounded out the podium in third place.
Full Contestant List
Season 8 fielded ten celebrity couples for the competition:
- Divyanka Tripathi & Vivek Dahiya — Winners
- Abigail Pande & Sanam Johar — Runners-up
- Sanaya Irani & Mohit Sehgal — Second runners-up
- Dipika Kakar & Shoaib Ibrahim
- Aashka Goradia & Brent Goble
- Trupti Akkalwar & Siddharth Jadhav
- Bharti Singh & Haarsh Limbachiyaa
- Monalisa & Vikrant Singh Rajpoot
- Amanjot Kaur & RJ Pritam Singh
- Utkarsha Naik & Manoj Verma
An earlier promotional list had also floated names including Rohan Mehra & Kanchi Singh, Arjun Bijlani & Neha Swami, Drashti Dhami & Neeraj Khemka, and Karan Rajpal & Shivaleeka Oberoi as potential contestants, though the confirmed final ten differed somewhat from these initial reports — a common pattern in reality show pre-season coverage.
Judges and What They Brought to the Panel
Sonakshi Sinha brought Bollywood star power and an actress’s perspective on performance and stage presence to the panel. Terence Lewis, one of India’s most respected choreographers, anchored the technical dance critique — a role he’s held across numerous Indian reality dance formats. Mohit Suri, primarily known as a film director, added a different, narrative-focused lens to how routines were judged, an interesting departure from the choreographer-heavy panels typical of the genre.
Hosting Duties
Karan Tacker anchored the season, having previously competed on Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa Season 7 as a finalist — giving him direct insider familiarity with the pressures faced by the couples he was hosting.
Final Thoughts
Nach Baliye 8’s win for Divyanka Tripathi and Vivek Dahiya became one of the more talked-about results in the franchise’s history, largely because the couple’s real-life marriage and strong on-screen chemistry made their victory feel like a natural culmination of a season-long fan favorite storyline. With a competitive top three all drawn from genuinely popular television names, the season reinforced why Nach Baliye has remained one of the most durable couple-format reality shows on Indian television.