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By Abhishek Mishra: BJP MP and Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh has found himself pinned to the mat as Delhi Police registered two FIRs against him after several women wrestlers accused him of sexual harassment. The protests by India’s top wrestlers, including Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik, in January and April has finally cornered the wrestling federation chief. Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, for his part, has denied all charges and called them a “political vendetta”.
As the WFI chief finds himself at the centre of a controversy that has taken the sports community by storm, here’s a look at Bahubali neta of the saffron party, who enjoys solid popularity in Uttar Pradesh.
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POLITICIAN BRIJ BHUSHAN SHARAN SINGH
Birj Bhushan Sharana Singh is a six-time MP — five times for the BJP and once (in 2009) from the Samajwadi Party (SP). He has represented Gonda, Kaiserganj and Balrampur constituencies. His dominance can be seen in many districts of Uttar Pradesh, including Gonda, Balarampur, Ayodhya.
A resident of Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh, he was a wrestler during his youth and joined students’ politics in the 1980s. He catapulted to fame owing to his fiery ‘Hindutva image’ at the time of the Ram Mandir movement in Ayodhya.
Singh fought elections for the first time in 1991 and was elected to the 10th Lok Sabha. He was re-elected to the Lok Sabha in 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014, and 2019. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, he won the Kaiserganj seat when he had a short stint with the Samajwadi Party. He joined the BJP before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and was elected to the Lok Sabha after contesting on the BJP ticket in 2014 and 2019.
Brij Bhushan’s son, Prateek Bhushan, is also in politics and is the BJP MLA from Gonda.
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BRIJ BHUSHAN SINGH & THE BJP
Brij Bhushan Singh has had a long-standing association with the Bharatiya Janata Party, his brief stint with the Samajwadi Party almost like an aberration. He has been associated with the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and was also named in the Babri demolition case.
In 1996, when Brij Bhushan Singh was denied a ticket after he was indicted in a TADA case for allegedly harbouring associates of gangster Dawood Ibrahim, his wife Kekti Devi was fielded by the BJP from Gonda. She went on to win the election.
Apart from his impressive electoral influence, Brij Bhushan Singh has also continued to exert his influence through about 50 educational institutions, spread over a radius of 100 kilometers from Ayodhya to Shravasti. Local BJP sources say that Singh’s election machinery is run almost entirely independent of the party through this set-up. This gives off the impression that Brij Bhushan Singh needs the BJP as much as the BJP needs Brij Bhushan Singh, sources added.
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But Brij Bhushan Singh’s relation with the BJP seems to be slightly sensitive at present, with the party high command not happy with the row over the wrestlers’ protest. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is also not seen to be close to Singh. Though the party has taken no action against Brij Bhushan Singh yet, it remains to be seen what attitude the BJP will have given the spiraling controversy and with just over a year left for the Lok Sabha elections.
OTHER CONTROVERSIES INVOLVING BRIJ BHSUHAN SINGH
Brij Bhushan was among the accused named in the Babri demolition case. However, in September 2020, after a prolonged legal battle, the BJP MP was acquitted of all charges.
Known for his outspoken rhetoric, Singh had earlier threatened to teach a lesson to Raj Thackeray if he entered Ayodhya, at a time when Thackeray’s MNS was getting closer to the BJP.
And now, the 66-year-old WFI chief has been accused of sexually harassing women wrestlers.
Though he managed to emerge almost unscathed in previous instances after he faced TADA charges and in the Babri demolition case, the allegations of sexual harassment levelled against him by several top wrestlers has put him in the limelight again.
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