Julana (Haryana): Indian grappler Vinesh Phogat made a successful debut in the political ring on Tuesday winning the Haryana Assembly election from Julana constituency. Vinesh’s fierce challenger was BJP's Yogesh Kumar whom she beat by a margin of 6015 votes. However, Vinesh also had another opponent who was also a wrestler. Kavita Rani, contesting from the Aam Admi Party (AAP) was up against her and earned only 1280 votes in total. Also, as Kavita failed to amass the minimum quota of ⅙ share of the total votes, she lost her deposit.
Kavita Rani (Kavita Dalal) is also known as Lady Khali in wrestling circles. The gold medalist at the 12th South Asian Games eight years earlier, Kavita made history in 2017 when she became the first Indian star to be signed by WWE. The wrestler joined AAP in 2022 and is the head of the party’s state sports wing.
After her disqualification from the Paris Olympics, Vinesh joined the Indian National Congress (INC) last month. The Indian grappler was disqualified from the Paris Olympics due to being overweight by 100 grams. After her disqualification, she appealed in the Court of Arbitration of Sports for a shared silver. However, her appeal was turned down and Vinesh returned from the French Capital empty-handed. She had announced her retirement from the sport after the occurrence. Her disqualification triggered a lot of discussion in the sports fraternity around the development.
Earlier, Vinesh was involved in the protests against former BJP MP Brij Bhushan Singh who was also the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president.
