Gill under fire over ‘migration of players’
Minister of sports and youth affairs M.S. Gill came under sharp attack from the Opposition parties, including the BJP and Left, in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday for his recent remarks in the Lok Sabha stating that the MPs should file an RTI if they want information regarding the Commonwealth Games (cwg). Mr Gill’s jibe has not gone down well with the Opposition parties’ MPs who tried to corner him in the Rajya Sabha during Question Hour.
Mr Gill on Thursday informed the Rajya Sabha that four Indian-origin wrestlers, including Sandeep Kumar, are part of Australian National Squad. Mr Gill said Kumar obtained Australian citizenship and represented that country in the Beijing Olympics. He said that apart from Kumar, three other wrestlers, are in the Australian Squad and may represent Australia in the Delhi Commonwealth Games in October. The Mps sitting in the Opposition benches cried shame as BJP member Maya Singh alleged that Kumar, a gold medalist, had migrated to Australia due to poor economic conditions.
“Lot of people from various parts of India are migrating for economic reasons to Australia,” Mr Gill said and denied that any Indian wrestler who won gold medal for the country in Moscow wrestling event in 2000 had migrated to Australia. “The wrestling federation of India had not sent any team to Moscow for wrestling even during 2000,” he said. Not just wrestlers but other sportsmen too were migrating to other countries for economic reasons, he said pointing to Jeetan Patel being part of New Zealand cricket team. responding to a volley of supplementary questions on the poor conditions for athletes in the country, Mr Gill said that none of these questions are related to the question listed in House. The BJP and Left MPs seized this opportunity to attack Mr Gill asking whether they should they file RTI queries now to get their replies. however, the Speaker asked the MPs to stick to their questions and not raise other issues in the House.
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