After multiple delays and couple of interjections by the Supreme Court.
The elections for the Wrestling Federation of India’s (WFI) Executive Committee will be held on Thursday with outgoing president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s faction expected to sweep the polls. Led by Uttar Pradesh Wrestling Association’s vice-president Sanjay Kumar Singh, the Brij Bhushan-backed panel is confident of a clear majority, with some officials even claiming a hundred percent result.
Elections will be contested for 15 posts including president (1), senior vice-president (1), treasurer (1), secretary general (1), vice president (4), joint secretary (2), and executive members (5). Singh’s panel will be challenged by former wrestler Anita Sheoran who has called the polls her “toughest and most significant bout.”
“Sometimes, being on the mat and fighting the good fight is more important than the results and no one can understand that better than an athlete. Whatever happens in the elections, my job is to put wrestlers’ interests first. If Brij Bhushan-backed panel wins, it won’t be good for women wrestlers,” Sheoran, who is also one of the key witnesses in the sexual harassment case against Brij Bhushan, said.
The WFI office on election eve was a hub of frenetic activity with a number of Brij Bhushan loyalists cheerfully milling around.
“Barring Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and Odisha, all state units will vote for the Sanjay Singh panel. Most, if not all of the 50 electoral college members, will vote for Sanjay,” an official said.
Sanjay Singh claimed the support of 40-42 members. “To my calculation, 40-42 members will vote for me. The entire panel will be ours. Every voter knows who has worked for wrestling and who can take Indian wrestling forward. I am certain of my win,” he said.
“My victory was secured in August too but they got the election postponed just a day before we were supposed to go to polls. I don’t foresee such an eventuality on Thursday considering Supreme Court has intervened,” Singh added.
While the wrestlers chose to remain quiet on Wednesday, Phogat announced that she will address the media after the elections. The wrestlers had met Thakur last week and expressed their reservations over Singh’s candidature. They had also sought the time from home minister Amit Shah but couldn’t get an appointment.
“We were given all kind of assurances by the sports minister. He said he will do his best for us. We also tried getting an appointment from Amit Shah at least twice but didn’t succeed. We’re hoping for the best tomorrow,” Sheoran said.
WFI polls were initially scheduled for May 7 but when wrestlers Bajrang Punia, Sakshi Malik, and Vinesh Phogat began their sit-in at Jantar Mantar in April, the sports ministry stalled the elections and constituted an ad-hoc committee to run WFI. The committee, presided by Wushu Association of India president Bhupender Singh Bajwa, was asked to conduct polls within 45 days.
WFI elections, later scheduled for July 11, were then stayed twice, first by the Gauhati High Court and then by the Punjab and Haryana High Court and it took Supreme Court’s intervention on both occasions to clear the decks for the polls.
The apex court’s latest order came on November 28 when it set aside the stay imposed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. “Pending a writ petition filed by the Haryana Wrestling Association, by an interim order the high court has stayed the election of WFI. We fail to understand how the entire process of the election could have been set at naught by HC. The proper course would have been to allow the election to be conducted and make the election subject to the outcome of the pending writ petition,” a bench of justices Abhay S Oka and Pankaj Mithal had noted, paving the way for Thursday’s polls.
“There is no change in the electoral college or the candidates. We will conduct the elections in a fair and transparent manner. I don’t foresee any more hurdles,” said returning officer Justice (retd) MM Kumar.
Meanwhile, Brij Bhushan and his erstwhile secretary Vinod Tomar appeared in the Rouse Avenue court in the sexual harassment case filed against them by six female wrestlers where Justice Priyanka Rajpoot adjourned the hearing to January 4 and January 6.