New Delhi: Rio Olympics bronze medallist Sakshi Malik has revealed the controversial role of wrestler-turned-politician Babita Phogat in last year's wrestlers' agitation, alleging that Phogat encouraged the protests to position herself as the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president. Malik, a key figure in the protest, stated in a recent interview that Phogat called a meeting with several wrestlers, urging them to speak out against the alleged misconduct of former WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and others in the federation.
“Babita Phogat approached us with the idea of protesting against Brij Bhushan Singh because she had her own agenda — she wanted to become the WFI president. There are rumors that Congress supported our protest, but that’s false. In fact, two BJP leaders helped us secure permission to protest in Haryana — Babita Phogat and Tirath Rana,” Malik said.
Despite Phogat's initiation of the movement, Malik clarified that the wrestlers did not “blindly follow her.”
“It’s not that we blindly followed her; we were aware of serious issues like sexual harassment and molestation within the federation. We believed that having a woman in charge, especially someone like Babita Phogat, who is also a sportsperson, would bring positive change. We trusted that she would understand our struggles. But we never anticipated that she would play such a big game with us. We thought she would stand with us in the protest and raise her voice against the wrongdoing as a fellow wrestler,” Malik revealed.
Malik also made striking claims regarding fellow wrestlers Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat, both prominent figures in the movement. In her memoir, Witness, Malik alleged that those close to Punia and Vinesh began to influence their decisions, leading to a troubling shift in focus. Their acceptance of exemption from the 2023 Asian Wrestling Championships trials, according to Malik, damaged the integrity of the protest that had sparked at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and spread throughout the country.
“The old way of thinking selfishly was taking over again. The people close to Bajrang and Vinesh had started filling their minds with greed. Now they were discussing exemptions from trials for the Games. Nothing good came of Bajrang and Vinesh’s decision to take the exemption. Their choice hurt the image of our protest, leading many supporters to think we were in it for selfish reasons,” Malik wrote.
Malik emphasised that claims of Congress party supporting their protest were unfounded, highlighting the assistance from BJP leaders like Phogat and Tirath Rana in securing permission for their protests in Haryana. The movement emerged as a powerful symbol against alleged misconduct within the federation, led by Malik, Vinesh Phogat, and Bajrang Punia, but unity began to fracture as external influences led to conflicting priorities.
Brij Bhushan faced allegations of sexually harassing several female athletes and financial misconduct. The six-time Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Kaiserganj constituency stepped down as WFI chief, along with the entire Executive Committee, shortly after protests resumed in April following earlier demonstrations in January 2023.