With only seven months till the 2024 Paris Games, Olympic wrestler Bajrang Punia called on the Sports Ministry to resume wrestling in the country on Saturday. Punia claimed that nobody appeared to be taking the quadrennial showpiece preparations seriously.
"Wrestling activities have come to a standstill for the last several months. Neither has any nationals been held nor have any camps been organised to prepare the players (for Paris Olympics)," Punia wrote on his 'X' account.
"There is an Olympic Games after seven months but no one seems serious about it. Wrestling has given four consecutive medals in the last four Olympics,” he added.
Punia, who had decided to return his Padma Shri in protest over the election of Sanjay Singh, a Brij Bhushan loyalist, further said the officials should keep in mind the players’ future.
"So, I request the Sports Ministry to start all wrestling activities as soon as possible so that the future of the players can be saved,” he added.
Since the grapplers' protests against former president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, there has been no wrestling action for a few months due to internal strife within the fraternity.
The suspension of the Sanjay Singh-led panel by the Sports Ministry for violating its own constitution in declaring the national U-15 and U-20 Championships prevented even the election of a new Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) body from restoring things back to normal.
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