Boxer Vijender Singh quits Congress, joins BJP

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, April 3

The Congress suffered another pre-poll jolt on Wednesday with pugilist Vijender Singh, who had contested on its ticket in 2019 Lok Sabha election, joining the BJP in the National Capital.

Singh, 38, hails from Bhiwani in Haryana. He had extended support to the farmers’ agitation against the agricultural reforms laws and more recently to the agitation of women wrestlers against former Wrestling Foundation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.

Singh had shot to fame by winning a bronze in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the first Indian to do so.

He later won bronze at the 2009 world championships and then 2010 Commonwealth Games.

In the 2006 and 2014 Commonwealth Games, he bagged silver and in the 2010 Asian Games, he won a gold.

Singh hails from the dominant Jat community and was being widely rumoured to be a Congress candidate opposite Hema Malini in Mathura.

In 2019, Singh contested South Delhi parliamentary seat opposite BJP’s Ramesh Bidhuri and lost.

He was awarded the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 2009 and Padma Shri in 2010.

Of late, Singh had been politically inactive.

However, Singh had reposted one of ex-Congress chief Rahul Gandhi’s posts only 22 hours ago keeping the Congress distant from his immediate political goals and ambitions.

It remains to be seen if Singh will be fielded by the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls.