Newly-appointed Wrestling Federation of India President Sanjay Singh has rejected the supervisory committee appointed to oversee his organisation's operations by the Indian Olympic Association, following the Sports Ministry's orders. The ministry shut down WFI temporarily after Singh hastily announced that the nationals for Under-15 and Under-20 categories would occur before the end of 2023, citing disregard for due process. (More Sports News)
IOA on Wednesday confirmed that a three-member committee led by Bhupinder Singh Bajwa, President of the Wushu Federation of India, had assumed supervisory control of the WFI. Singh, however, refused to acknowledge the committee and threatened legal action if the lockdown on his federation were to continue.
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"I don't believe in this committee. You cannot form an ad-hoc committee without my permission. I will talk to the government about this. Will seek legal advice to save WFI and go to court if talks with govt don't work. I have won the elections democratically. I won the election with 40 votes out of 47. All the state federations are with me. So you cannot form a committee arbitrarily," Singh told ANI on Wednesday.
A close aide of the outgoing WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, Sanjay Singh beat Anita Sheoren 40 to seven in the recently organised federation presidential elections, much to the dismay of the protesting wrestlers, who had actively been protesting against Brij Bhushan for months. In the aftermath of the election results, Olympic medallist Sakshi Malik retired from wrestling, while Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat returned their national awards to the government of India.
