India's top wrestlers protesting against Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chairman Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, have written a letter to Indian Olympic Association President PT Usha claiming the nation's decorated grappler Vinesh Phogat was mentally harassed by federation chief after she missed out on an Olympic medal at the 2020 Tokyo Games. The letter also mentioned that WFI has been abusing several youngsters as well as claiming misappropriation of funds.
Meanwhile, Singh, who is under pressure to resign from his position over allegations of sexual exploitation of women wrestlers, said he will "expose" the "political conspiracy" on Friday afternoon in a press conference. Singh, who is also a BJP Lok Sabha MP from Kaiserganj in Uttar Pradesh in a post on his Facebook said that he will hold a press conference at the Wrestling Training Centre in Nawabganj in Gonda district of the state.
The press conference is scheduled to be held this evening. Earlier Singh said that the presser would be held at noon before changing the time to after 4 pm today. The development comes hours after some wrestlers had a late-night meeting with Union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur on Thursday. Thakur who arrived at his Delhi residence late last evening from Chandigarh met with the wrestlers and the meeting stretched into the early hours of today. According to sources it ended on an undecisive note.
The Union Sports Ministry has also given a deadline to the WFI to respond within 72 hours to the allegations made by the wrestlers. The Ministry stated that if the WFI fails to furnish the reply within the next 72 hours, it will proceed to initiate action against the federation in terms of the provisions of the National Sports Development Code, 2011. The deadline expires on Saturday.
