India’s first Olympic medallist Vijender Singh on Wednesday quit Congress to join the Bharatiya Janata Party. Singh, who was a vocal critic of the BJP till recently, praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi today saying that respect for Indian sportspersons has increased in the country and abroad since the BJP came to power at the Centre.
“I am the same old Vijender. Whatever I would feel wrong, I would call it wrong. I will call it right if I feel it is right,” said Singh.
“In a way it is my ‘ghar wapasi’ (homecoming),” he said, adding “There is a saying in English- ‘Good to be back’. I am feeling very good.”
As recently as on March 29, the boxer was reposting tweets by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
In a post on X, Gandhi had said, “When the government changes, action will definitely be taken against those who ‘destroy democracy’! And such action will be taken that no one will dare to do all this again. This is my guarantee.” Singh reposted the tweet.
Again, in a post on X on March 26, Rahul Gandhi spoke on the issue of unemployment and questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his “promise” of two crore jobs. This was also reposted by Singh.
Cut to five days later, Singh, who took a plunge in politics in April 2019 by joining the Congress, joined the saffron party.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Singh lost from the South Delhi constituency on a Congress ticket. He was up against BJP’s Ramesh Bidhuri and AAP candidate Raghav Chadha. Vijender suffered a crushing defeat, finishing behind the other two contestants and losing his deposit after securing only 13.56% of the total votes.
In the upcoming elections, speculations were rife that he could be the party’s nominee from Mathura, which is the constituency of incumbent MP Hema Malini, who has again been fielded by the BJP.
Further, replugging wrestlers’ protest, where country’s top grapplers sat in protest against Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief and BJP leader Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, calling for his removal over sexual harassment allegations.
In January last year, he joined the wrestlers protesting at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. He had said that the allegations against Brij Bhushan were serious, and that action should be initiated against him.
“It is condemnable that the prime minister has been silent over the issue. There should be action at the earliest in the matter,” the boxer had said.
“I want justice to be served to those wrestlers, there must be a thorough probe into the allegations raised by wrestlers and there must be a CBI probe against those who’re involved in this,” Singh had demanded, as quoted by ANI.
The Haryana-based boxer had also joined Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’.