Vinesh Phogat to return her Khel Ratna, Arjuna Award over WFI elections row
New Delhi, Dec 26: Asian and Commonwealth Games gold medallist Vinesh Phogat on Tuesday announced that she will be returning her Khel Ratna and Arjuna Award to the government over its support to former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.
In a statement issued on social media on Tuesday after Olympic bronze medallist Sakshi Malik announced she is quitting wrestling and Bajrang Punia returned his Padma Shri award, Vinesh Phogat became the third high-profile wrestler to decide to relinquish awards given to them by the government.
"I am returning my Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award and the Arjuna Award. Thanks to the powerful people for pushing things to this stage," Vinesh Phogat said in a letter addressed to the Prime Minister and posted on X, formerly Twitter.
The wrestlers are blaming the government for not preventing a close aide of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh from being elected as the president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI).
She said the Modi government had announced Sakshi Malik as the brand ambassador of the Save Girl Child campaign after she won the bronze medal in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio and now dumped her for the sake of saving Brij Bhushan, who the wrestlers allege has been sexually harassing young female wrestlers.
Our lives are not at all like those fancy advertisements, we have suffered a lot in the last couple of years.
"The flex boards that had your fancy advertisements are old now and Sakshi has taken retirement whereas the perpetrators have maintained their reign and also announced his hegemony to the world," he wrote.
She asked the PM to take five minutes from his busy schedule and listen to the statements made to the media by Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and his aide Sanjay Singh and he would know how they had confessed to harassing women wrestlers, she claimed.
The three renowned wrestlers along with many others had led a two-month-long protest seeking Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh's arrest before they were forcefully detained by the Delhi Police,