Hyderabad: Olympic bronze-medalist Sakshi Malik has made some shocking revelations in her autobiography ‘Witness’.
The former Indian grappler has claimed that Babita Phogat who supported the protest of wrestlers against Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh wanted to replace him in the role.
"In hindsight, while I know that ending Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh's reign was the primary goal for Vinesh and Bajrang, I made the mistake of thinking that that was Babita's sole intention too. She didn't just want to just get rid of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh – she wanted to replace him," Babita was quoted saying by a PTI report.
The former Indian wrestler has stated in her book that the decision of Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia to accept exemption from the Asian Games trials last year hit the image of the protest according to a report by PTI.
The trio of Sakshi, Bajrang and Vinesh were the faces of the protest. The three had alleged that Sharan Singh, the former head of the Wrestling Federation of India, molested women wrestlers during his stint.
"The old way of thinking selfishly was taking over once again. The people close to Bajrang and Vinesh had started filling their minds with greed. Now they were talking about this exemption from trials for the Games," Sakshi wrote in the book co-authored with journalist Jonathan Selvaraj but did not give names of those who influenced the duo.
"...Nothing good came of Bajrang and Vinesh's decision to take the exemption...their decision badly hurt the image of our protest. It put us in a situation where many supporters started to think that we were actually in the protest for selfish reasons.”
Both Vinesh and Bajarang joined the Congress party recently. Vinesh contested the Haryana assembly elections from the Julana constituency and won while Bajrang was made head of the party's national farmers' unit.
Vinesh was at the centre of the controversy earlier this year as she was disqualified from the Paris Olympics as she failed to meet the eligibility criteria because of being overweight.
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