‘Nothing to do with this..’, says Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh on Sakshee Malikkh’s retirement from wrestling
An hour after Rio Olympics bronze medalist Sakshee Malikkh announced her retirement from wrestling after the election of BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s alleged loyalist Sanjay Singh as the Wrestling Federation of India’s president, the former WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh said he has nothing to do with this.
The former president of the WFI Brij Bhushan Singh said on Thursday that it is the victory of wrestlers across the country and added, “This is not my personal victory, this is the victory of the wrestlers of the country. All wrestling activities were stopped for 11 months. I hope that after the formation of the new federation, wrestling events will resume which were paused for the past 11 months.”
“A message has been given. Every akhaada in the country is bursting firecrackers. Dabdabaa tha, dabdabaa rahega!. I want to give the credit of victory to the wrestlers of the country and the electors.I want to thank the government as well. The elections were done on instructions of the Supreme Court and the Centre had submitted the PIL for this. Elections were held by the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the Centre went ahead to make sure elections happened and a non-partisan person was chosen as president. This ‘grahan’ of 11 months on wrestling is over. Within 10 days, the landscape of wrestling will change again and we will perform in the Olympics the way people want us to,” concluded Brij Bhushan.
Sanjay Singh, who hails from Varanasi and is the UP Wrestling Association Vice President, secured 40 votes against seven that his rival and 2010 CWG gold medallist Anita Sheoran got.
Sanjay Singh’s panel comfortably won 13 of the 15 posts in the delayed polls.
The WFI elections were held on Thursday, December 21, after several postponements earlier in the year and the counting began soon after.
ALSO READ: Sakshee Malikkh breaks down, quits wrestling after Brij Bhushan’s aide elected WFI president
Sakshee Malikkh has on December 21 announced her retirement from wrestling in protest after Sanjay Singh’s victory.
“We slept for 40 days on the roads and a lot of people from several parts of the country came to support us. If Brij Bhushan Singh’s business partner and a close aide is elected as the president of WFI, I quit wrestling,” Sakshee Malikkh said.
The fight will continue: Sakshee Malikkh
Sakshee Malikkh asserted that the fight against Brij Bhushan, who has been accused of sexual harassment by a number of wrestlers, will continue.
“We had made demands for a woman president. If the president would be a woman, harassment would not happen. But, there was no participation of women earlier and today you can see the list, not even a single woman was given a position. We had fought with complete strength but this fight will continue. The wrestlers of the new generation have to fight,” Sakshee Malikkh said.
Met Minister in December:
In December, both Bajrang Punia and Sakshee Malikkh met Union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur at his residence in Delhi for discussions on the WFI polls.
After the meeting, the wrestlers said they were assured that the government would keep its promise that no one related or close to Brij Bhushan would get a post in the WFI.
With agency inputs.
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Published: 21 Dec 2023, 06:03 PM IST
