New Delhi, Aug 14:
Hockey India (HI) and Billiards and Snooker Federation of India (BSFI) have openly criticised the Arjuna Award selection committee for ignoring players of their respective sports.
This year no hockey or cue sport player features in the list of 15 sportpersons recommended by the Arjuna selection panel headed by cricket legend Kapil Dev.
While HI nominated Joydeep Kaur and Ritu Rani from the women’s national team, Dharamvir Singh, VR Raghunath, Tushar Khandekar, Bharat Chetri and Shivendra Singh’s name were listed from the men’s team.
The BSFI had nominated world ladies billiards champion Chitra Magimairaj, bronze medallist in the world ladies snooker championship Vidya Pillai and gold medallist in the Asian Team Championship (2013-Doha) Brijesh Damani.
HI secretary general Narinder Batra is miffed at the snub given to hockey players for the prestigious award.
“We Hockey India have nothing against the medal winners and wish them well but certainly are upset and dissatisfied with the way the committee under the chairmanship of Mr Kapil Dev handled the selection of award winners,” Batra said in a statement.
“Till now I used to support Government when it used to say that the federation are not managing themselves properly, but today I can say everybody is dishonest. And they have no business to give lectures to NSF’s and IOA,” he added.
In what HI thinks will seem to be a fitting reply to the snub, the federation has decided to reward its nominees with cash prizes. (PTI)
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