Players warming up to join poll arena

Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Hisar, August 13

Politics and sports seem to be getting intertwined in Haryana, literally. With the Assembly elections round the corner, a number of sportspersons have been warming up to join the electoral battlefield from different political parties.

Haryana has a plethora of sportspersons who have excelled at the international level. Even in the just-concluded Olympics, five out of total six medals of the country were won by Haryana players in different sports, including javelin throw, wrestling, shooting and hockey. Moreover, sports is also one of the major electoral planks in the state this time especially in the wake of the wrestlers agitation against WFI ex-chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh in Delhi and now the weight fiasco with the wrestler Vinesh Phogat in the Paris Olympics.

With the electoral stage having been set in the state, some sportspersons are ready to take the political plunge apparently after retiring from sports. The political parties are also eager to cash in on their iconic status and popularity.

Babita Phogat, one of the Dangal girls belonging to the Phogat family in Charkhi Dadri district, has already embarked on public campaign programmes, hoping to get a BJP ticket for the second time. She had lost the last Assembly elections on the BJP ticket. Speculations are rife that Vinesh Phogat — cousin of Babita Phogat — could be approached by a political party for contesting the Assembly polls.

Olympics medalist Sakshi Malik, Yogeshwar Dutt, world championship gold medallist boxer Saweety Boora are among those who have been nursing political aspirations.

Sakshi’s mother Sudesh Malik said they will definitely consider the option of joining the electoral politics. “She will take a decision in this regard soon if she is approached by the political party to contest the election,” she said. She belongs to Madina village which is part of Meham Assembly constituency in Rohtak district. Family sources said her family is close to the Congress leaders.

Boxer Saweety Boora too is eager to make her political debut and hopes to get the BJP ticket from Barwala Assembly segment in Hisar. “I am hugely impressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” she said, hoping for her electoral debut. Olympics medallist boxer Vijender Singh, who had contested on the Congress ticket from Delhi in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, has recently joined the BJP.