To be honest I did not see any competition to Shukla till a few weeks after the first finale.I was supporting him too.He came across as genuine even though he was flawed.His relationships with Asim and Sana were genuine even if he came across as someone who is a bit of a control freak and egoistic.
Things changed when he sided with Chabra for the game and started playing Chabra's game.
Then adding to this the biased ways of the channel which was going out of it's way to favour him.
All thanks to these two issues he started losing fans