The star wrestler, Bajrang Punia has been ignored for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award and in order to discuss the same, he met Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and said he has been assured that his case will be looked into. This year, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award will be received by the Indian skipper Virat Kohli and gold-medallist weightlifter Mirabai Chanu. According to the points system, Kohli has scored zero points while Chanu has 44 points to her credit and Punia has 80 points.
A question may arise as to why Kohli, did not receive any points, despite doing well for India on a consistent basis. Well, it is all due to the structure of the points system used by the committee. The point system has been framed keeping in mind the performances in Olympics and international tournaments. Cricket isn’t an Olympic sport, so the points of cricketers will always remain zero, which gives room for controversies.
Talking about his meeting as quoted in PTI, Bajrang said, “I was supposed to meet the Minister today but suddenly we got a call last evening for the meeting. I asked the Minister about the reason for not considering me for the Khel Ratna. He said I didn’t have enough points which are wrong. I have garnered more points than the two (Virat Kohli and Mirabai Chanu) who were nominated.”
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Punia won gold medals at the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games said if he doesn’t get a favorable reply by evening, he will be forced to knock the doors of Court to get justice. He was accompanied by his mentor Olympic medallist Yogeshwar Dutt during the meeting.
Describing the same, he further added, “I have been wronged. I want justice. The Minister said he will look into the matter but there is hardly any time left for the award function. I will wait till evening for communication from the government’s side. If I don’t get a favorable reply by evening I will move court tomorrow.”
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Besides all this, as per the terms of reference for the selection committee, it “may not mechanically recommend Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna to the recipient of the highest marks across disciplines. But in a particular sports discipline, the award will be recommended only for the recipient of the highest aggregate marks.”
The controversy took rise when the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) nominated Virat for the topmost award in the field of sports despite the fact that no criteria exist for Virat’s performance, as per the old points system. He was selected when a panel member informed that there was a massive debate over the Indian captain’s nomination and eight out of the eleven-panel members agreed to his selection.
There were six nominees who had a higher score than Kohli (0) and Chanu (44). Wrestler Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat topped the list with 80 points each, para-athlete Deepa Malik followed with 78.4 points, table-tennis player Manika Batra (65), archer Abhishek Verma (55.3) and boxer Vikash Krishnan (52) were next in line.
The current methodology isn’t sufficient for the right selection of the candidates. It is essential that all things must be on the same ground. Perhaps, an alteration in the criteria of the performance in cricket is needed, where the World Cup must be treated as equivalent to Olympics and multi-nation tournaments such as Asia Cup must be equivalent to Asian games. Though, this isn’t the ideal method but certainly better than the existing one.
