Government vs wrestlers: Blow hot, blow cold | More sports News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Two days ago, India’s leading wrestlers had questioned the formation of the government-appointed oversight committee, which was constituted to probe charges against Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, which included sexual harassment allegations.
On Thursday, however, the same set of protesting wrestlers including Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat, Ravi Dahiya, Deepak Punia and Anshu Malik, agreed to be part of the 55-member strong Indian contingent for the season-opening Zagreb Open ranking series, scheduled to be held in Croatia from February 1 to 5. The contingent was named by the same MC Mary Kom-headed oversight committee, which had failed to find acceptance among the grapplers who threatened to launch Jantar Mantar 2.0 if their demands for disbanding and setting-up a new probe panel wasn’t paid heed to.

This time, the wrestlers didn’t question the decision of the committee, which they claimed was formed by the sports ministry without holding consultations with them. Apart from Mary Kom, the other committee members were Yogeshwar Dutt, Trupti Murgunde, Radhica Sreeman and Cdr (retd) Rajesh Rajagopalan.
Among the contingent members, 13 are men and 12 women freestyle wrestlers and 11 greco-roman grapplers. The trip has been cleared at ‘full cost to government’.
The oversight panel will be running the day-to-day affairs of the WFI till the time the probe into the allegations is completed within one month. Last week, top wrestlers had held a sit-in protest at Jantar Mantar for three days demanding the sacking of the WFI president. The wrestlers had accused Singh, a six-time Lok Sabha MP, of “sexually harassing” female wrestlers and “dictatorship.”
The Zagreb tournament will see the participation of close to 600 wrestlers, with Japan’s women’s wrestling team returning to a ranking series event after a hiatus of five years.