New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi visited Virender Arya Akhada in Haryana's Jhajjar district and tried his hands at wrestling with Olympic medallist Bajrang Punia on Wednesday. His visit comes amid a fresh controversy over the election of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Sanjay Singh and the subsequent suspension of WFI after Singh announced hosting the U-15 and U-20 nationals by the end of this year.
Sharing photos of his visit on X, Gandhi captioned it on the ongoing row and wrote in Hindi, “There is one question - if these players, the daughters of India, have to leave the fight in their arena and take to streets to fight for their rights and justice, then who will encourage their children to choose this path? These are innocent, straightforward and simple people from farmer families. Let them serve the tricolour. Let them make India proud with full honour and respect.”
The photos show Rahul Gandhi and Bajranj Punia trying out some wrestling moves as the latter pins the Congress leader on the mat. Both are seen smiling as several people watch them.
Speaking to news agency ANI, Punia said, “He came to see our wrestling routine...He did wrestling...He came to see the day-to-day activities of a wrestler.”
Notably, the grapplers who accused former WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh of sexual harassment were miffed over the election of Sanjay Singh, who is believed to be very close to Brij Bhushan. As a mark of protest, several wrestlers returned their awards. Sakshi Malik announced her retirement from wrestling, Vinesh Phogat said she would return her Khel Ratna and Arjuna Awardm while Bajrang Punia returned his Padma Shri.