After 2012, tug-of -war to be part of 'Khedan Vatan Punjab Diyan'

Jalandhar, August 23

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Looking at the great response from participants, district sports officers have requested higher officials to extend the date so that maximum number of people could participate in ‘Khedan Vatan Punjab Diyan’ to be organised from August 29 — the National Sports Day.

The two-month-long sports event will be kick-started by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann from local Guru Gobind Singh Stadium for which elaborate arrangements are being made.

In a first time online entries are being invited for the event. “Everyone is asking us the process to apply and some are also coming physically to get themselves registered,” Sports Officer Lovejit Singh said. Sports officials said players who would come on the day of commencement of the event would also be entertained. ‘Tug-of-war’ game will be the part of the event. The adrenaline-racing event was confined to the demo matches played on Sunday.

A demo of ‘rassa kashi’ (tug-of-war) was never a part of the event for the last several years. In the 2012 edition, tug-of-war was part of the event, the Sports Department then excluded it and confined it to the demo matches only.

The decision of the department had disappointed the players of tug-of-war. Since then the game was hardly played anywhere.

Deputy Commissioner Jaspreet Singh on Tuesday reviewed the preparationsfor the games. The sporting events would be held in various age groups, including under-14, under-17 and under-21, besides open groups between the age group of 21 and 40, 41 and 50 & above 50 years of age. As per the schedule the block-level tournaments will be held from September 1 to 7 where volleyball, athletics, football, kabaddi, kho kho and tug-of-war will be played while district level tournaments will take place from September 12 to 22.