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‘Defeated country’s daughters’: Sakshi Malik on Brij Bhushan's son getting BJP ticket

Sakshi Malik expressed anguish at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for picking former WFI chief Brij Bhushan Shahran Singh's son, Karan, as its candidate for the Lok Sabha polls from the Kaiserganj seat in Uttar Pradesh.

She said the decision had defeated the country's daughters.

Top wrestlers, including Sakshi, Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat, had accused Brij Bhushan of sexually harassing women wrestlers during his tenure as Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief and sat at Jantar Mantar for months, demanding his arrest.

Brij Bhushan is the sitting Member of Parliament from Kaiserganj, and his son, who has been given the Bharatiya Janata Party ticket for the seat, has rankled the protesting wrestlers.

In a post on 'X,' Sakshi wrote, "The daughters of the country lost, Brij Bhushan won." The Rio Games bronze medallist, who quit wrestling last year, added that the wrestlers' demand for justice had not been heeded.

"We all put our careers at stake and slept on the streets for many days in the sun and rain. Till date, Brij Bhushan has not been arrested. We were not demanding anything, we were only demanding justice.

"Leave the arrest. Today, by giving a ticket to his son, you have broken the morale of crores of daughters of the country. If the ticket goes to only one family, is the country's government so weak in front of one man? Only votes are needed in the name of Lord Shri Ram. What about the path shown by him?" she questioned.

During their nearly year-long protest last year, Sakshi, Bajrang, and Vinesh demanded that none of Brij Bhushan's relatives or close aides be allowed to contest the WFI elections.

Sakshi announced retirement from the sport after the BJP leader's close aide, Sanjay Singh, was unanimously elected as the new WFI chief last December.