American Idol is supposedly a singing competition, but Sanjaya Malakar is turning it into a circus.

A finalist on TV’s highest rated-programme, the 17-year-old Indian-American Seattle resident—who sports chameleon-like hair, a wispy voice and funky fashion stylings, has become this month’s pop-culture punching bag, the celebrity everyone loves to hate.

On Wednesday, he moved up one more round in the American Idol contest showing off his fan base that seems to be determined to keep the lanky lad on stage. Sanjaya will be back next week hoping to stay on till the current season ends in May.

Critics worry that his continued presence on the show will erode some of the goodwill the show has built up, thanks to the success of albums such as Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson and Grammy winners Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood. “By putting these less-talented people like Sanjaya in the top 24, the producers have already undermined the purpose of the whole show,” said Jerry Friday, former board president for the Miss Atlanta Scholarship Pageant and a friend of Season One contestant Tamyra Gray.

Saturday Night Live last weekend mocked Sanjaya’s cover of the Kinks’ You Really Got Me.

The web site www.votefortheworst.com, which encourages voters to get behind the worst singers, has embraced him. So has Howard Stern, the Sirius satellite radio jock, apparently for irony’s sake. There’s even a woman on MySpace claiming to starve herself until he gets voted off.

Adding fuel to the firestorm, Sanjaya on Tuesday gleefully wore a faux mohawk, fashioned from seven ponytails, a visual that overshadowed his vocal shortcomings while covering No Doubt’s Bathwater.

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