Amidst rumours of his resigning and wrestlers accusing him of pressurising them to end their protest and the Delhi Police of high-handedness, beleaguered Wrestling Federation chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh finally spoke to the media, saying it was orchestrated by a political-industrialist nexus.
Denying any plan to resign — a cosmetic move more than anything else given the incumbent WFI board has been replaced by an Ad-hoc committee and Singh himself declaring he won’t contest the next elections — the strongman from Gonda also accused the wrestlers of wanting preferential selection for international events, something denied by Vinesh Phogat.
“I have been wrestling since 2009 and in the 14 years since then, I have only skipped four national championships. I can list them — first was after the Rio Olympics because of injury, then before the Tokyo Olympics because of Covid, then after Tokyo because of depression and treatment and then last year after the World Championships. I don’t consider myself special to demand any such thing. Bajrang (Punia) is a bigger athlete than me and even he never skips trials.
