Wrestling Federation Of India Announces New Date For Elections After Supreme Court Order

Justice MM Kumar who is the retired chief justice from the J&K High Court, declared a revised schedule on Friday.

Wrestling Federation of India elections to be held on August 12.

Source : Twitter/@ANINewsUP

After a lot of drama involving Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and the protesting wrestlers regarding sexual assault charges, the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) elections are now to be conducted on August 12 and nominations are to be filed on August 1. Justice MM Kumar who is the retired chief justice from the J&K High Court, declared a revised schedule on Friday.

The ad-hoc panel had earlier said that the elections will take place July 6 but it was forced to reschedule the polls to July 11 after state bodies from Maharashtra, Haryana, Telangana, Rajasthan, and Himachal Pradesh after getting disaffiliated approached it for a hearing, stating that their dismissal was not appropriate.

The panel heard the aggrieved representatives of the state bodies but the polls could not go ahead even on July 11 with Gauhati High Court staying the elections after Assam Wrestling Association (AWA) sought the right to participate in the poll process. The Supreme Court then paved the way for elections on Tuesday after staying the Gauhati High Court order.

The electoral college will now have 48 members with voting rights from 24 state bodies and the nominations for posts will be filed on August 1. The scrutiny of the nominations will be conducted in August and a final list of the candidates will be published on August 7. If the election is required, voting will be conducted on August 12.

The Ministry of Sports came with an order for WFI in order to suspend all their activities immediately after appointing an oversight committee to investigate the allegations of sexual harassment of women wrestlers by national body president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who has received bail in the case. Brij Bhushan, who has completed 12 years as president, is ineligible to contest elections as per Sports Code guidelines. It will be interesting to see if his son Karan, who heads the UP Wrestling Association, contests the elections.

(With PTI Inputs)