Wrestlers in late-night huddle with Union sports minister Anurag Thakur, may file FIR against WFI chief | More sports News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: The government on Thursday failed to convince the agitating wrestlers to call off their protest demanding resignation of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh over charges of sexual misconduct and intimidation, with the country’s top grapplers threatening to lodge a police complaint against Singh if he doesn’t resign by Friday evening.
Late on Thursday night, sports minister Anurag Thakur met the wrestlers and assured them that the issue will be resolved soon.
Live: Wrestlers protest updates
Refusing to wait till Saturday evening when the government’s deadline seeking explanation from Singh and WFI office-bearers expires, the protesters, led by Olympic medallists Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik and double World Championships medallist Vinesh Phogat, upped the ante on the second day of their peaceful sit-in by demanding not only Singh’s resignation but also the disbanding of the WFI and all its affiliated state units.

The wrestlers’ confrontational approach forced Singh to call for an “extraordinary general body meeting” of the WFI on Sunday in Ayodhya to discuss the raging controversy. Speculation is rife that Singh will resign, but it won’t be easy to politically sideline the BJP strongman in Uttar Pradesh with the next general elections due in early 2024.

Singh has been to the lower house of the parliament six times in his career and is a sitting BJP MP from Gonda’s Kaiserganj seat in UP. According to political observers, he has influence in 17 districts of eastern UP and had played a vital role in BJP’s unchallenged run during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Singh left for Gonda early Thursday morning from his official 21 Ashoka Road residence here to attend a private function and will remain stationed there until Sunday morning before heading to Ayodhya. With the wrestlers protesting at Jantar Mantar, a heavy deployment of Delhi police personnel and paramilitary forces was seen outside his bungalow. The WFI office situated inside his residence has also been locked temporarily owing to security reasons.

On Thursday morning, around 200 wrestlers from the nearby states of Haryana and UP – including Tokyo Olympics silver medallist Ravi Dahiya and Birmingham CWG gold medallist Deepak Punia –joined the protest.

Later, three-time CWG medallist and BJP leader Babita Phogat – who is also Vinesh’s cousin – arrived at the protest site and assured the grapplers that justice will be delivered to them. She took Bajrang, Vinesh, Sakshi, Anshu Malik and Satyawart Kadian to meet a sports ministry delegation comprising sports secretary Sujata Chaturvedi. SAI director general Sandip Pradhan and joint secretary (sports) Kunal.

After patiently hearing the wrestlers and their grievances and despite assuring them of action against Singh and WFI office-bearers, the grapplers refused to call off their protest. They held a press conference after the meeting, where Vinesh talked about the plan to file an FIR against Singh over sexual harassment charges on Friday.

“We had one or two victims of harassment with us yesterday. But today, we have five-six female wrestlers who have come forward with their stories of sexual harassment. We won’t name them for now. If need be, we will be forced to disclose their identity and that will count as a black day in the history of the country where goddess ‘Durga’ and ‘Lakshmi’ are worshipped. At least five-six girls will lodge multiple FIRs on Friday,” Vinesh said.

“It’s not just about Singh’s resignation. Our fight won’t stop until we send him to jail. We didn’t take the legal route because we had hoped for a resolution. We are Olympic and world medallists, so don’t suspect us. You (media) have to believe us because we are telling the truth,” she said.

Sakshi said sexual abuse runs deep in the federation and national camps, and the time had come for Singh and his men to be removed from state-run sports bodies. However, one question which has remained unanswered after two days of protest: Why didn’t Rio Olympics bronze medallist Sakshi take cognisance of the sexual harassment allegations levelled by the fellow wrestlers or lodge complaints on their behalf despite being part of the federation’s sexual harassment committee in the present executive council?
Sources in the ministry and SAI have also confirmed to TOI that not a single complaint of sexual harassment against Singh “officially or unofficially” was ever received by their departments during his more than a decade-long tenure as the WFI chief.