Ace shooter and Khel Ratna selection panel member Anjali Bhagwat on Wednesday lashed out at discus thrower Krishna Poonia, who called her to lobby for the top honour just a day before the committee met.
“She called me and asked me to recommend her name for the Khel Ratna award the day before the panel met,” Bhagwat was quoted as saying.
A miffed Bhagwat said it was not right on Poonia’s part to claim that it was she who got the list changed at the last moment to include double trap world champion Ronjan Sodhi’s name in place the discus thrower.
“It was very cheap on Poonia’s part to publicly say that I was the one who had got the list changed,” she added.
Sodhi’s name was recommended for the Khel Ratna award last week, sparking a controversy with some members of the panel questioning the process of his selection.
However, Poonia rubbished allegations that she had lobbied for the Khel Ratna, saying she was only raising her voice against the “injustice” meted out to her.
“I was not doing any lobbying. Wrong has been done to me, and I was only raising my voice against that,” Poonia said.
Meanwhile, sports minister Jitendra Singh on Wednesday urged the Indian Olympic Association to sort out its differences with the IOC through negotiations, and asked the administrators to put national interest first to ensure that the ban on India is revoked at the earliest.
“The government of India urges all concerned to ensure that individual interests should not come in the way of our national interest and good of sports,” the minister said in a statement.