Wrestler Bajrang Punia, 23 Dec 2023: has returned his Padma Shri in protest against the election of Sanjay Singh, close to Brij Bhushan Singh, as the president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI). He placed his medal on the footpath in front of the Prime Minister’s residence on Friday.
After Sanjay Singh becoming the president of the Wrestling Federation of India, many wrestlers including Bajrang Punia, Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat are angry. These wrestlers have been protesting against Brij Bhushan for a long time. The demand of all of them was that a woman should be on the post of President of the Wrestling Federation of India.
Earlier, Bajrang had given this information by posting on social media, Punia had also written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Poonia has also shared this letter on X. Bajrang Punia wrote in the caption of the post, ‘I am returning my Padma Shri award to the Prime Minister. This is just my letter to say. This is my statement’
Padmashree was received in the year 2019
29-year-old Bajrang Punia received Padma Shri in the year 2019. Poonia has won bronze medal in Olympics. Bajrang had qualified for the Olympics for the first time by reaching the semi-finals of the World Wrestling Championship held in Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan in 2019. Bajrang had won the bronze medal in that championship. This was his third medal in the World Wrestling Championship. Although Bajrang was expected to win a gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics 2020, he had to be content with a bronze medal. In the bronze medal match in the 65 kg weight category, Bajrang Punia had defeated Kazakhstani wrestler Daulat Niyazbekov 8-0.
