Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat undermined protest with decision to play at Asian Games: Sakshi Malik

Sakshi Malik has revealed how fellow wrestlers’ Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat agreeing to go to the Asian Games undermined the entire protest against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. In her book ‘Witness’, which she has co-authored with sports journalist Jonathan Selvaraj, the Rio Olympics bronze medal winner said the episode caused a rift among the trio that was at the forefront of the “fight for justice” in the sexual harassment allegations against the then BJP MP.

Calling the decision a terrible one, Sakshi took pot shots at Punia and Vinesh for “filling their minds with greed”. “It was terrible decision on Bajrang and Vinesh’s part. Whether we wanted to or not, we had become part of a movement that was bigger than us. 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,” said Malik in the chapter titled ‘Cracks Start to Appear’.

“Nothing good came of Bajrang and Vinesh’s decision to take the exemption. Bajrang went to the Asian Games, where he didn’t win any medal, and Vinesh had to withdraw from the tournament because she suffered a knee injury and had to get surgery,” she added.

However, their decision badly hurt the image of the protest, the wrestler said. “It put us in a situation where many supporters started to think that we were actually in the protest for selfish reasons,” she said.

Interestingly, while citing the “double game” played by another wrestler Babita Phogat for starting the first protest in January 2023 and trying to end it, Sakshi has also revealed that Home Minister Amit Shah was aware of the wrongdoings much before the wrestlers sat on protest. It was after Shah’s phone call to Bajrang that the first protest was ended abruptly.

“Although I didn’t know it then, both Vinesh and Bajrang had met Shah earlier that year after they returned from the World Championships. They had told him about Brij Bhushan’s actions and how badly the Wrestling Federation of India was being run. Amit Shah had promised them that he would look into the matter but had asked them to wait until the end of the Gujarat elections so that it wouldn’t become a political issue,” Sakshi said in the chapter titled ‘How The Protest Started’.

Sakshi has severely criticised Babita for not standing up with wrestlers initially, alleging that Babita saw the protest as an opportunity to replace former WFI chief Brij Bhushan at the helm.

“If she got us off the protest site, what could be a suitable reward for her? She didn’t just want to just get rid of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh — she wanted to replace him,” Sakshi said.

‘Anurag a harsh individual’

Sakshi made a special mention of Sports Minister Anurag Thakur, who she called a “harsh individual”, who was bored to hear complainants’ horror stories.

“As each of us told our stories, the atmosphere in the room became steadily more emotional. Some of the younger girls were already breaking down in tears. However, Thakur could have been listening to someone talking about the weather. It was as if he was bored and just wanted our meeting to be over. He came across as a very harsh individual. I was unsure of just what we had achieved, if we had indeed achieved anything at all,” she said, while explaining the encounter with Thakur on the night when the first protest was called off.

“Shortly after we had told our stories to Thakur and he had left the room, Bajrang got a call. On the other end of the line was Amit Shah. Bajrang said he was told that it was time to end the protest,” she said.