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New Delhi: Former Wrestling Federation of India chief and BJP leader Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh arrives to appear before the Rouse Avenue Court in an alleged sexual harassment case lodged by female wrestlers, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. (Photo: PTI)
Former BJP MP and ex-WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh on Friday sought to downplay wrestlers Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia’s foray into politics, saying any BJP candidate will defeat them if they contest in Haryana and also offered to campaign in the upcoming assembly elections should his party allow.
Earlier, Phogat and Punia, who were at the forefront of the wrestlers’ protest against the then WFI chief Singh, joined the Congress with a vow of “not being scared or backing off”.
There are indications that both or at least one might contest the October 5 assembly polls in Haryana.
He went on to add: “If my party directs, I will also go and campaign in the Haryana assembly elections. I claim that I will get maximum support from the people of their community. I am ready to campaign in favour of the BJP candidate in front of them as well.”
He also claimed that during the Lok Sabha elections, the “people of Haryana were saying that if you come and contest elections from here, we will make you win, but at that time I had refused them”.
Singh said many Congress leaders joined the wrestlers’ protests in the name of getting justice for them.
“One after the other, many wrestlers were made their pawns. The Congress, along with the wrestlers, has destroyed wrestling in this country,” he alleged.
He also said that when the wrestlers were protesting in Delhi, a wrestling competition of junior and senior level was organised in Nandini Nagar (Gonda).
“But these people protested and got that competition cancelled. The result was that junior and senior players could not wrestle at their age,” Singh alleged.
He also reiterated that the protests were a “conspiracy of the Congress”.
“What I said on the first day, I stand by it even today and today the whole country is saying the same thing. Now I don’t need to say much about this,” Singh told PTI.
At the event, Singh also said, “Now I do not need to say much about this. I will not speak much on this episode, otherwise this thing will reach Haryana immediately. At this time the whole country is waiting for Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh to say something on this issue.”
“When the women wrestlers had levelled allegations against me, I had then said that this is a conspiracy of the Congress,” he said.
“There was a conspiracy against me in 1996 as well. At that time, my wife Ketki Singh had become an MP. I was in Tihar Jail those days as part of a conspiracy. After this, there was a conspiracy against me in 2023 as well. Then my younger son Karan Bhushan Singh became an MP in my place,” he said.
In 1996, Singh was arrested under the TADA law in a criminal case in Mumbai and was then lodged in Tihar Jail. In his place, the BJP fielded his wife from Gonda in the Lok Sabha elections and she was elected.
After the allegations made by the women wrestlers, the BJP did not give Singh a ticket from Kaiserganj and made his son Karan Bhushan Singh the candidate.
Karan Bhushan Singh won the Lok Sabha polls by a margin of over 1.48 lakh votes defeating SP’s Bhagat Ram.
“Before this incident, no one took a selfie with me. Now after this incident, heroes and heroines also take selfies, even saints and sages are taking selfies,” Singh said in his speech.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First Published: Sep 06 2024 | 9:50 PM IST
