More than two months after her heartbreaking disqualification from gold medal bout at the Paris Olympics 2024, wrestler Vinesh Phogat made a successful political debut. Congress' Vinesh defeated Bhartiya Janata Party's (BJP) Yogesh Kumar to win in Julana by 6,015 votes.
Vinesh got a total of 65,080 votes. Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) candidate Surender Lather was third with 10,158 votes. Earlier in the day, when the counting began, Vinesh was trailing. As the day progressed, she took the lead and maintained it to win by just over 6,000 votes.
Vinesh was one of the prominent faces in the protest against former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) President Brij Bhushan Singh who is accused of sexual harassment. Recently, Vinesh accused BJP of not paying heed to the wrestlers’ plea.
Recently, she also claimed that she refused to be recorded on camera when approached to get on a call with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as she missed out on the gold medal bout for being 100 grams overweight in her weight category.
“The call had come (from PM) but I refused to speak. The call did not come directly to me but Indian officials who were there informed me that he (PM Modi) wanted to talk. I was ready. However, they put conditions — no one from my team would be present, while two people from their side would record the conversation for social media,” she said in an interview with The Lallantop.
“I didn’t want my emotions and hard work to be made fun of on social media.”
Vinesh was distraught after missing out on a once in a lifetime opportunity as she could not shed the excess weight despite working hard and not sleeping a wink the night before the final. She said she would have appreciated a genuine call from the prime minister rather than making a show of it.
“If he truly cared about athletes, he could have called without recording it, and I would have been grateful,” the 30-year-old said.
“Maybe he knows if I speak to Vinesh she will ask about the last two years. Maybe that’s why I was instructed that there will be no phone from my side because they can edit (video) from their end but I will not edit. I will post the original video. So they denied.”
