Vinesh Phogat, one of the leading faces in the grapplers’ protest against the outgoing chief of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) Brijbhushan Sharan Singh, on Friday said the wrestling world will remember London Olympic Games medallist Yogeshwar Dutt for being a spineless lackey of Singh.
This was hours after Dutt questioned the exemption granted to her and five others from the Asian Games and World Championships trials.
Phogat also alleged that Dutt, now a BJP leader, had laughed off the sexual harassment complaints against the WFI chief during the oversight panel hearings where he told one of the women wrestlers that “such things happen”.
Dutt was one of the six members of the oversight panel formed by the government to probe the sexual harassment allegations against Singh.
The government had not made public all the findings of the probe.
Dutt posted a Twitter video on Friday, questioning the logic and criteria behind the exemption granted to the grapplers. Two hours after Dutt’s tweet, Vinesh gave it back to the former wrestler and in style.
The six wrestlers on protest, including Bajrang Punia and wife Sangeeta Phogat, will have to win just one bout against the winner of stage-one trials to be on the Indian squad for the Asian Games and World Championships.
“The whole wrestling world understood that Yogeshwar was eating leftovers from Brijbhushan’s plate,” Vinesh wrote on her Twitter page.
The fiery double Asian Games gold medallist didn’t stop short of calling Dutt a Singh lackey and someone who has betrayed his own fraternity.
“Wrestling world will always remember you for licking the feet of Brijbhushan,” she wrote.
“As long as a Jaichand like Yogeshwar remains in wrestling, surely the spirits of the oppressors will remain high,” she said in a reference to Kanauj King Jaichand, who is as per legend, remembered for conspiring with Muhammad of Ghor to defeat Prithviraj Chauhan.
“He constantly prevented wrestlers and coaches from joining the protest. The whole wrestling world understood that he was eating out of Brijbhushan’s plate,” she wrote.
She also accused Dutt of making unsavoury remarks about jawans in the Indian Army, students, and Muslims.
