No facilities, budding wrestlers transplant paddy in protest

Kulwinder Sandhu

Tribune News Service

Moga, June 29

Exposing tall claims of the SAD supremo and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on promotion of sports in the state, young girls hailing from poor families who won national and state awards in wrestling adopted a novel way to protest against the SAD-BJP government.

They transplanted paddy in their fields at Dhurkot Ransinh village in Nihalsinghwala subdivision of Moga district.

They also met Sukhbir at Ajitwal during Sangat Darshan in the district today and apprised him of the problems being faced by them in the absence of good coaches, who were withdrawn by the Punjab Police from the Sports Department recently.

They were on deputation to train young boys and girls in sports.

Navjot Kaur, who was selected by the Sports Authority of India for training at the national level after acknowledging her performance in the national sub-junior games, said she had been taking coaching at Baba Shekh Farid Kushti Akhara along with many other girls of the area in Dhurkot Ransinh village for the past many years.

There was a coach posted on deputation from the Punjab police at the training centre, but the state government recently withdrew his services to the parent cadre after which they all were left in the lurch.

The Punjab police had recently withdrawn the services of at least 70 coaches who were training budding sportspersons in many districts of the state.

Around 100 school girls of the area were getting coaching in wrestling at Dhurkot Ransinh village for the past many years.

Most of these girls between the age group of 13 and 15 years had been transplanting paddy in the fields for the past few days. All these girls were also honoured on the Republic Day by the state government this year.

Though the Deputy CM assured budding players that their problems would be addressed, the fact is that more than 50 villages of Nihalsinghwala subdivision do not have sports facilities for children. Only a few villages have sports stadiums with no separate facilities in place for girls even as the area is represented by Bibi Rajwinder Kaur, a woman legislator.

Sukhbir doles out Rs5.32 crore to 28 panchayats

On the second and last day of his Sangat Darshan at Ajitwal in Moga district, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal distributed cheques of grants worth Rs 5.32 crore to 28 panchayats of the Nihalsinghwala Assembly constituency, besides releasing a special grant of Rs 20 lakh for a school being run by the Lala Lajpat Rai Yaadgari Committee at Dhudike village. He claimed that there was no dearth of funds for development works.

The leaders of opposition parties were propagating a false propaganda against the SAD-BJP government.