MasterChef India Season 9 – Winner, Runner-Up, Host, Contestants & Prize Money (2026)

Season 9 arrived with an idea the franchise had never tried in its 15-year run: contestants would not compete as individuals. They would compete as pairs — brothers, sisters, mothers and daughters, family duos — in a format called “Pride of India,” where the cooking was inseparable from the relationship between the people doing it.

The idea was a risk. Cooking competitions work on individual journeys. Pairs formats distribute the narrative across two people and can dilute the emotional specificity that makes a winner’s story resonate. MasterChef India Season 9 made it work by choosing pairs who had something to prove not just culinarily but through the person beside them.

MasterChef India Season 9 – Quick Overview

Host of MasterChef India Season 9 – Paritosh Tripathi

Season 9 introduced a dedicated host for the first time since Ravi Dubey in Season 3 — stand-up comedian and television personality Paritosh Tripathi. The previous several seasons had been structured around the judges anchoring the narrative without a separate host. Tripathi’s role brought a warmer, more conversational energy to the proceedings, and his background in comedy gave the pairs format’s emotional moments a counterbalance that purely judge-led seasons sometimes lack.

Judges of MasterChef India Season 9

Vikas Khanna returned for his ninth consecutive season in some capacity — an extraordinary run that makes his tenure synonymous with the show’s entire contemporary identity.

Ranveer Brar returned for his fifth season, equally embedded in the franchise’s ongoing character.

Kunal Kapur returned as a full-time judge for the first time since Season 5 (2016) — a decade-long gap that his reappearance turned into a genuine narrative moment for long-time viewers of the show. Kapur had been one of the original two judges from Season 1 in 2010, making his Season 9 return a full-circle moment in the franchise’s history.

Chef Sanjeev Kapoor appeared as a guest judge in the grand finale — a cameo that added historical weight to the season’s closing episode, given his role as a regular judge in Seasons 3 and 4.

Winners of MasterChef India Season 9 – Ajinkya & Vikram Gandhe

Ajinkya and Vikram Gandhe are brothers from Nagpur, Maharashtra, who run a café together. Vikram, 31, studied commerce at City Premier College in Nagpur. Ajinkya studied architecture. Their cooking was rooted in Maharashtrian home cuisine — dishes built on the food their family had cooked for generations — elevated through technique and precision that the judges consistently found compelling across the competition’s pressure tests and creative challenges.

Their particular strength, noted repeatedly through the season, was in dessert and balance of flavour — an ability to produce multi-component dishes where the regional identity of the food was clear but the execution met the standards the MasterChef kitchen demands. The combination of familiar Maharashtra flavours and technically confident execution was the recipe that carried them through 12 pairs of competitors to the March 6, 2026 finale.

The finale featured the three remaining family pairs — the Gandhe brothers, the Odisha sisters, and the Telangana mother-daughter duo — in front of a packed audience with Sanjeev Kapoor as guest judge.

Prize: ₹25 lakh, the MasterChef trophy, and the Golden Chef’s Coat.

Runner-Up Profiles

Anju Pradhan & Manju Ojha (sisters, Puri/Bhubaneswar, Odisha) — the first runner-up pair. Their cooking showcased traditional Odia cuisine — a regional food tradition of great depth and complexity that rarely receives national television representation. Their authentic regional dishes, emotional storytelling through food, and strong teamwork made them one of the most beloved pairs in the competition. They received a cash prize consistent with season norms (estimated ₹10–15 lakh based on available post-finale reporting).

Chandana & Saisri Rachakonda (mother-daughter, Hyderabad, Telangana) — the second runner-up pair. Their Telangana-rooted cooking and the generational dynamic of a mother and daughter working together in the kitchen gave their story a specific emotional texture. They finished third in the finale.

MasterChef India Season 9 – The Pairs Format in Detail

The structural novelty of Season 9 is worth documenting properly. The nationwide auditions drew a large number of pairs, from which 25 were selected and brought to the MasterChef kitchen for the Agnipareeksha bootcamp. The bootcamp consisted of two challenges:

The first was The Great Indian Bread Basket — pairs had to produce four regional Indian breads (Girda Roti, Khoba Roti, Malabar Parotta, and Sel Roti). The 18 pairs who completed all four were advanced. From the remaining seven, the judges selected the best performers to complete the top 12 pairs.

From 12 competing pairs, the competition ran through weekly challenges, eliminations, and pressure tests until the three-pair finale. The pairs format required contestants to demonstrate not just individual cooking skill but coordination, communication, and the ability to divide and complete tasks under pressure as a unit.

MasterChef India Season 9 – Top 12 Pairs

The confirmed finalist pairs and their regional identities:

MasterChef India All Seasons – Complete Winners Reference

FAQs About MasterChef India Season 9

Q: Who won MasterChef India Season 9?

A: Ajinkya and Vikram Gandhe, brothers from Nagpur, Maharashtra, won Season 9 on March 6, 2026. They are café owners who cook Maharashtrian home cuisine, and won for their creative precision and balanced flavours across pressure tests and creative challenges. They received ₹25 lakh, the MasterChef trophy, and the Golden Chef’s Coat.

Q: What was unique about MasterChef India Season 9’s format?

A: Season 9 was the first season in the franchise’s history to feature a pairs-based competition. Contestants entered as family duos — brothers, sisters, mother-daughter — rather than as individuals. 25 pairs competed in the initial Agnipareeksha bootcamp, from which 12 pairs were selected for the main competition. The finale featured three pairs representing Maharashtra, Odisha, and Telangana.

Q: Who hosted MasterChef India Season 9?

A: Paritosh Tripathi — comedian and television personality — hosted Season 9 as the show’s first dedicated host since Season 3. Previous seasons (4–8) had no separate host, with judges anchoring the programme.

Q: Why is Kunal Kapur’s return to Season 9 significant?

A: Kunal Kapur was one of MasterChef India’s original judges from Season 1 (2010) and had not appeared as a full-time judge since Season 5 (2016). His return to Season 9 — a decade later — alongside Vikas Khanna (who has appeared in some capacity from Season 2 onward) created a reunion of the show’s original judging DNA alongside Ranveer Brar.

Q: Who were the runner-ups of MasterChef India Season 9?

A: First runner-up was Anju Pradhan and Manju Ojha — sisters from Puri/Bhubaneswar, Odisha — who showcased traditional Odia cuisine throughout the competition. Second runner-up was Chandana and Saisri Rachakonda — a mother-daughter pair from Hyderabad, Telangana — representing Telangana’s regional culinary traditions.