Elections for the Wrestling Federation of India will take place on July 6, the returning officer stated on Tuesday. On the same day, the results will be announced. This comes a day after Mahesh Mittal Kumar, a retired judge from the Jammu and Kashmir high court, was named the Indian Olympic Association’s returning officer.
The reason the elections are significant is that Anurag Thakur, the sports minister, told the wrestlers who were protesting that no family members of departing president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh would be permitted to run for office. Olympic medalists Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia are among the finest wrestlers in India who have called for Brij Bhushan to be detained for alleged sexual harassment.
Singh has served as the president of the WFI for 12 years, but the National Sports Code’s tenure cap prevents him from running for another term.
The following 15 positions will be up for election: president, senior vice president, four vice presidents, secretary general, treasurer, two joint secretaries, and five members of the executive committee.
The returning officer stated in his notification published on Tuesday that “all the recognised wrestling federations of the states/UTs are hereby called upon to nominate two (2) persons each of the respective as per the rules of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Govt. of India, and the last date of receiving two nominations from each State/UT for constituting the electoral college has been fixed as 5.00 p.m of 19th June, 2023.”
Choosing which opposing faction from states like Maharashtra, Haryana, and Karnataka will be permitted to vote will be one of the returning officer’s duties.
