BAI makes it official @ Saina wedding!

Vinayak Padmadeo

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 12

Many of the National Sports Federations and other agencies who are planning an off-site work-cum-pleasure trip anytime soon may need to consult the Badminton Association of India (BAI) officials on how to mix work with pleasure.

BAI has called a meeting to select the core group of Indian badminton players for 2019-20 on December 16 in Hyderabad. The same day, London Olympics bronze medal winner Saina Nehwal and her longtime boyfriend Parupalli Kashyap are taking the wedding vows. The venue of BAI’s meeting and Saina-Kashyap’s wedding reception is the same hotel.

Saina and Kashyap have invited all top BAI officials for the wedding celebrations. It is understood that BAI will foot the boarding and lodging charges of the officials who will be attending the meeting.

A BAI official confirmed that the meeting was scheduled in Hyderabad to coincide with the wedding reception. “A selection meeting has been called in Hyderabad on December 16,” said a BAI source. “We will have the meeting and then attend the wedding reception in the evening.”

However, BAI secretary general Ajay Raj Singhania said that it was routine for BAI to call meetings outside Delhi.

“We are not there to attend the wedding reception. It is work only. We have called such meetings in the past too, so this is nothing new,” Singhania said.