According to reports, the BJP has issued a “gag order” directing former member of parliament Brij Bhushan Singh to hold off from saying anything further about Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia. This happened just hours after the former head of WFI charged that the Congress and the “Hooda family” were planning to harm him by utilising the wrestlers, just as the Pandavas had threatened Draupadi. Singh caused a stir on Saturday as well when she declared that Phogat was being “punished by God” and called on her to stop “cheating.”
The BJP has reportedly ordered Singh to make sure that his remarks about the two don’t spark any new issue, according to a newspaper citing sources.
“In the gambling which took place in Mahabharat, Draupadi was put at stake. The Pandavas lost. The country is still not able to accept their reasons for doing it. The Hooda family … put the honour of daughters and sisters at stake. The future generation will not forgive them for this and they will always be held guilty for this…Bajrang Punia’s mental condition has deteriorated. He had put his wife at stake,” he told reporters on Sunday morning.
Following his son Deepender Singh Hooda’s defeat in the WFI elections, the senior BJP leader has maintained that Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the former chief minister of Haryana, was involved in a plan against him.
Following a fierce turf fight, Singh took over the Wrestling Federation of India in 2012. Before the protests against him began last year, he was allegedly sexually harassing and intimidating women wrestlers, and he had a vice-like hold on the body. The agitation had been led by Phogat, Punia, and fellow Olympian Sakshi Malik.
Since the pair joined the Congress on Friday, Singh has been outspoken in his criticism of them. Referring to them as the “villains of Haryana,” he maintained that the demonstrations against him were driven by political motives. He also insisted that Vinesh Phogat had gone to the Olympics by ‘cheating’ and therefore ‘deserved’ whatever happened to her.
“Who is Bajrang Punia to even talk to me? He used his wife for political gains. Vinesh Phogat broke the rules by participating in a trial. The rule is that a player cannot give a trial in two weight categories on the same day. She took away the rights of junior wrestlers by giving an incorrect trial. They hijacked the entire system. The same weight she hid here became her downfall there (in Paris Olympics),” he said on Saturday.
