For Olympian Joydeep Karmakar, it is becoming a rather tedious wait. Faced with some uncalled-for incidents and a delay in renewal of his contract as national coach, Karmakar had sent in his resignation to the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) on June 10.

But till Saturday, the shooter, who narrowly missed a medal at the London Olympics in the 50-metre rifle-prone event, has not heard from the national federation. “I have no idea whether they have accepted my resignation or not. But given the toxic circumstances under which I had to take such a call, I will not go back,” Karmakar told The Telegraph.

Karmakar is the third shooting coach to tender his resignation from the NRAI within a month. In May, India’s trap coach Russell Mark and his wife and skeet coach Lauryn had quit citing delay in contract renewal. This may well make things difficult for the shooters in their preparations for the Paris Olympics.

Karmakar did not want to put on record the “bias” he felt against him and also certain “humiliating incidents”.

“I just wanted to do my job. And never have Indian shooters done so well in the 50m rifle 3 positions as they did in the last year under my tenure,” he said.

“I mailed my resignation on June 10. There was a lot of backbiting and politics. It was becoming toxic. My contract was for three years, renewable every year. So it was supposed to be renewed after March 31. But there was no official communication. So I had no clue whether I was being sacked or whether my contract would be renewed.”

Karmakar was appointed as the national coach in 2022, after India’s rifle shooters failed to live up to the expectations at the Tokyo Olympics.

An unprecedented 11 medals and one Olympic quota (for the Paris Olympics) have been won over six ISSF competitions during Karmakar’s tenure.

“My relation with the shooters is excellent. I was lucky to have a bunch of such talented players,” Karmakar said.

The behaviour of the NRAI-appointed high-performance director, Pierre Beauchamp, allegedly has been one of the reasons for the coaches’ annoyance with the job.

“He pushed and shoved me and even verbally abused me in front of senior NRAI officials during last year’s World Championships in Cairo. It was completely unacceptable,” Karmakar said. “I did not retaliate because I didn’t want to cause trouble within the team.”

He added: “It was getting increasingly difficult to work under such circumstances. I did write to the NRAI officials on April 19 saying I will resign if instructed. I also sent them another mail pointing out the issues I was facing. But I never got a response.”

Karmakar said the silence on the part of the NRAI was humiliating.

“I had represented India at the Olympics. It would have been nice if someone could have written to me, making their stance clear. It is not right to humiliate coaches in this way,” he said.