Bajrang turned down offer to join Congress to contest Raj elections
Bajrang is from Jhajjar, Haryana, and though he has no direct link with Rajasthan, he is seen as a national icon after his exploits on the mat
New Delhi Days after India’s top wrestlers halted their months-long sit-in protest against former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh in July, Olympic bronze medallist Bajrang Punia was approached by the Congress to fight the assembly elections from Rajasthan.
HT has learnt that the push came from then chief minister Ashok Gehlot, but the wrestler turned him down because he did not want politics to sidetrack their crusade against the WFI boss.
A meeting happened in July in Jaipur, according to two people aware of details. At the time, Bajrang and wrestlers Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat were making an impassioned plea for action against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member of Parliament Brij Bhushan, who they said used his position as WFI head to sexually harass several women. Punia and the others sat on dharna at Jantar Mantar through Delhi’s extreme heat -- until June 26, when the Union the government ordered a police probe and promised action.
That was when Gehlot’s team, which had found what they thought would be an ideal constituency, made an offer to Bajrang.
To be sure, Bajrang is from Jhajjar, Haryana, and though he has no direct link with Rajasthan, is seen as a national icon after his exploits on the mat.
“The thinking in the Congress was that there was a history of a sportsperson from Haryana doing well electorally in Rajasthan,” said a person aware of the details. “The protest was also on top of people’s minds, and we hoped that they would get Sakshi and others to come and campaign for them.”
The Congress’s survey showed that Krishna Poonia, a discus thrower also from Haryana, may lose her Sadulpur seat in Churu district, said a second person. The Congress felt that voters would welcome another sportsperson instead of a sitting MLA who faced anti-incumbency. That survey later proved to be correct as Poonia lost the seat. However, their hopes of fielding Bajrang did not materialise.
Before he left to train for the Hangzhou Asian Games, Bajrang conveyed to the party that he wasn’t interested since the wrestlers had made an effort from the start to keep their protest apolitical.
HT reached out to Punia for a comment on the matter but didn’t get one till the time of print.
On Friday, a day after a panel backing Brij Bhushan stormed back to power in the Wrestling Federation of India elections, indicating little had changed in the body, Bajrang wrote to an anguished letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and returned his Padma Shri honour.
