Brij Bhushan on Vinesh Phogat’s Haryana win: ‘Power of my name helped her’

Hours after wrestler Vinesh Phogat won the Julana Assembly seat in Haryana Assembly elections on Tuesday, former BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh said that it was his name that had the “power to help her sail through”.

Vinesh, who joined the Congress last month, won the Julana Assembly seat as she secured 65,080 votes, defeating her rival, BJP’s Yogesh Kumar, by 6,105 votes.

“If she wins by using my name, it means I am a great man. At least my name has enough power to help her sail through”, news agency PTI quoted Singh as saying while he was addressing an event in Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda.

“Wherever (Vinesh) Phogat goes, destruction follows her, and it will happen in the future too. She may have won the election by herself but Congress is completely doomed”, the former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief added, adding that “these wrestlers are not heroes but villains for Haryana”.

The former BJP MP, referring to the Haryana election wherein the BJP won a clear majority with 48 seats and the Congress settled for 37 seats, also claimed that the efforts of Rahul Gandhi were failing.

“Now Congress should accept that the people of the country have rejected them”, he said.

Reacting to the victory of the National Conference-Congress combine in Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections, Singh said “The mood and atmosphere of the (political) weather there is different. The mandate is acceptable to us (BJP)”.

The INDIA bloc alliance of NC-Congress won a total of 48 seats out of the 90 J&K Assembly seats that went to polls, with the grand old party accounting for six of them.

Vinesh Phogat and grappler Bajrang Punia led the wrestlers’ protest against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh last year.

Six wrestlers levelled sexual harassment allegations against Singh. Based on their complaints, the Delhi Police filed an FIR against the former Kaiserganj MP following the Supreme Court’s intervention in May 2023.