Sakshi Malik reveals Babita Phogat’s role in wrestlers’ protest, claims Vinesh, Bajrang ‘hurt the image’ of agitation

Rio Olympics bronze medallist Sakshi Malik has revealed Babita Phogat’s role in the wresters’ agitation last year, saying wrestler-turned-politician encouraged the protests as she wanted to replace Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh as the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president. Malik, who was one of the faces of the protest last summer, told India Today that Phogat had convened a meeting with several wrestlers and urged them to protest against the alleged misconduct by ex-WFI chief Brij Bhushan and others within the federation.

“Babita Phogat approached us with the idea of protesting against Brij Bhushan Singh because she had her own agenda — she wanted to become the WFI president. There are rumours that Congress supported our protest, but that’s false. In fact, two BJP leaders helped us secure permission to protest in Haryana – Babita Phogat and Tirath Rana,” Malik said.

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Malik however, also made it clear that while Babita, who had won bronze in the 2012 wrestling world championships, initiated the movement, nobody “blindly followed her”.

“It’s not that we blindly followed her, but we were aware that there were serious issues like sexual harassment and molestation within the federation. We believed that having a woman in charge, especially someone like Babita Phogat, who is also a sportsperson, would bring positive change. We trusted that she would understand our struggles. But we never anticipated that she would play such a big game with us.

“We thought she would sit with us in the protest and raise her voice against the wrongdoing as a fellow wrestler,” Malik revealed.

‘Bajrang and Vinesh’s decision to accept trial exemption hurt image of protest’

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Malik also made sensational claims regarding Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Punia and Vinesh, who nearly made history in the Paris Olympics in August.

In her memoir Witness, Malik claimed that people close to Punia and Vinesh had started to pollute their minds with greed, and that their decision to accept exemption from the 2023 Asian Wrestling Championships trials hurt the image of the protest that raged through the summer in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and would later spread to cities and villages outside the national capital.

“The old way of thinking selfishly was taking over once again. The people close to Bajrang and Vinesh had started filling their minds with greed. Now they were talking about this exemption from trials for the Games.

“Nothing good came of Bajrang and Vinesh’s decision to take the exemption. Their decision badly hurt the image of our protest. It put us in a situation where many supporters started to think that we were actually in the protest for selfish reasons,” Malik wrote in her memoir.

Read | Sakshi set for another showdown with WFI after federation blocks new league by Olympic medallist

Brij Bhushan was accused of sexually harassing several female athletes as well as financial misconduct. The six-time Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Kaiserganj constituency, had stepped down as WFI chief along with the rest of the Executive Committee shortly after the protests resumed in April after briefly taking place in January 2023.

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) would later put an ad-hoc committee in charge until fresh elections were conducted in December, in which the camp led Brij Bhushan’s associate Sanjay Singh emerged victorious.

Sakshi would announce her retirement from wrestling shortly after the Sanjay Singh camp won the WFI polls.