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09-09-2024
Bureau Report + Agencies
NEW DELHI: Indian Olympic wrestlers Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia joined the opposition Congress party on Friday, entering politics a year after protesting against the chief of the sport’s governing body in India over alleged sexual harassment.
The move came weeks after Phogat’s emotional return home last month from the Paris Olympics, where she failed to make weight for the women’s 50kg freestyle final by 100 grams despite starving herself for a week.
It pushed the 30-year-old Asian Games gold medalist to announce her retirement from the sport and led to an outpouring of support, with hundreds of teary-eyed fans and wrestlers taking her on a road-show to her village in northern India after she arrived in Delhi.
Their entry into politics also comes weeks before provincial elections in their home state of Haryana, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is seeking a third straight term in power.
“They have not only brought glory to the country in the sports field but have also fought a strong battle against injustice on the street,” Congress General Secretary K. C. Venugopal told reporters after inducting the wrestlers into the party in New Delhi.
“Our fight will continue and we will win, in court and in life,” Phogat told reporters. “I am proud to be with a party that stands with women and against any injustice.”
“The hard work that we did during the protests and in support of farmers, soldiers and the youth, we will continue that hard work for our country,” said Punia, 30, who won bronze in men’s 65-kg wrestling at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Phogat, Punia and fellow wrestler Sakshi Malik, also an Olympic bronze medalist, were the face of a months-long protest demanding criminal action against the then chief of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh last year.
Singh, who was also a federal lawmaker from the BJP, was charged with sexual harassment and criminal intimidation based on a case filed by six female wrestlers in June last year.
He has denied any wrongdoing.
In May, A Delhi court informed the ex-chief of India’s wrestling federation, a powerful member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, of charges of sexual harassment and criminal intimidation against him.
Several Indian wrestlers came out in protest last year seeking criminal action against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a well-known lawmaker from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) following complaints by female wrestlers.
Singh has denied any wrongdoing.
“I welcome the decision of the judiciary and now doors have opened for me… We will face this,” Singh told reporters after the court order.
Local media reported that a Delhi judge said “the court found sufficient material on record” to frame charges of sexual harassment of five female wrestlers and with the offence of outraging their modesty.
Singh has been out on bail for nearly a year since police filed charges against him in June, prompted by a sit-in protest by some of the country’s top wrestlers.
Olympic medalist Bajrang Punia, who returned one of India’s highest civilian awards last year in protest over the issue, called Friday’s court decision a “big victory for the struggle of women wrestlers”.
“We had to sleep on the streets for many nights in the heat and rain, had to give up our good careers, only then have we been able to take a few steps forward in the fight for justice,” Sakshi Malik, a 2016 Rio Olympics bronze medalist, said in a social media post.
