Mumbai, March 2 (IANS): Salman Khan-starrer "Sultan" is competing in a maximum of nine categories, including the Best Film, for the Zee Cine Awards 2017m with Akshay Kumar-starrer "Airlift" in tow.

The channel announced its nominations of Jury Awards on Thursday in a statement.

Apart from Best Film, "Sultan" has been nominated in Best Director, Best Actor - Male, Best Actor - Female, Best Male Playback Singer, Best Female Playback Singer, Best Music, Best Story and Best Choreography categories.

Raja Krishna Menon's directorial "Airlift", on the other hand, has been nominated in Best Film, Best Story, Best Actor and also in Technical Awards.

The other films competing in the Best Film and Best Director categories include "Pink" (Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury), "M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story" (Neeraj Pandey), "Neerja" (Ram Madhvani), "Udta Punjab" (Abhishek Chaubey) and "Kapoor & Sons" (Shakun Batra).

Among those nominated in Best Actor - Female category are Alia Bhatt ("Udta Punjab" and "Dear Zindagi"), Vidya Balan ("Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh), Sonam Kapoor ("Neerja") and Anushka Sharma ("Sultan").

Akshay Kumar ("Airlift"), Salman Khan ("Sultan"), Manoj Bajpayee ("Aligarh"), Sushant Singh Rajput (M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story"), Amitabh Bachchan ("Pink") and Shahid Kapoor ("Udta Punjab") are in the race for the Best Actor- Male Award.

The Best Supporting Actor - Female category has names like Shabana Azmi ("Neerja"), Ratna Pathak Shah ("Nil Battey Sannata"), Konkona Sen Sharma ("Akira"), Tabu ("Fitoor") and Kareena Kapoor Khan ("Udta Punjab") in competition.

Actor Rajkummar Rao has been nominated in the category of the Best Supporting Actor- Male, which has veteran actors like Rishi Kapoor ("Kapoor & Sons"), Rajat Kapoor ("Kapoor & Sons"), Anupam Kher ("M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story") and Amitabh Bachchan ("Wazir").

In the music categories, Best Music has only Vishal-Shekhar and Pritam competing with each other for their work in "Sultan" and "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil", respectively. The Best Lyrics category also has only Amitabh Bhattacharya ("Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" and Irshad Kamil ("Sultan") in the race.

The other categories include Best Actor in a Negative Role, Best Debutant Director, Best Debutant - Female, Best Debutant - Male, Best Story, Best Choreography, Best Male Playback Singer and Best Female Playback Singer.

To ensure fairness in the selection process, Zee has appointed a jury panel consisting of filmmakers Boney Kapoor, Pradeep Sarkar and Tigmanshu Dhulia, cinematographer Sudeep Chatterjee, lyricist and playback singer Swanand Kirkire, singer Kavita Krishnamurti Subramaniam and sound editor Resul Pookutty.