Prajakta Sawant lashes at BAI for her withdrawal from Badminton World Championships
Prajakta Sawant has come out and rebuked Badminton Association of India (BAI) for withdrawing her name without consent from the mixed doubles category of Badminton World Championships. Jwala Gutta extended her support to Sawant in the whole fiasco and stated that she has been through this as well.
Prajakta Sawant took to Twitter and lashed at Badminton Association of India for her withdrawal from Badminton World Championships. Sawant's entry, along with her Malaysian partner Yogendran Khrishnan, was earlier accepted but it was later withdrawn and an all-Indian pair was selected. According to Badminton World Federation (BWF) rules for eligibility and processing of entries of World Championships, "in the event that players from two different Member Associations compete together as a pair, each player will be counted as 1/2 an entry for the respective Member Association in that event".
I feel very sad to announce that Badminton Association of India has withdrawn my Mixed Doubles entry with Yogendran Krishnan (Malaysia) without informing me or without my consent.
— prajakta sawant (@prajakta_sawant) June 29, 2018
This is very unprofessional thing done by Badminton association of India (BAI) @Ra_THORe @BAI_Media
Sawant also said that the young Indian pair of Rohan Kapoor and Kuhoo Garg, who
Our entry was confirmed by both sides from Malaysia as well as India but BAI withdrew my entry without my permission just to give an lndian pair a chance who is ranked 67 according to the qualification date of World Championships and we were ranked 51 according to WC... @Ra_THORe pic.twitter.com/JRG5Ge9lQA
— prajakta sawant (@prajakta_sawant) June 29, 2018
Jwala Gutta also reacted to the controversy and apparently supported Sawant saying she also had to fight "against the biggies" for similar reasons.
Well that’s always been the case wasn’t it?? When I was playing it always happened to me...why do u think I fought against the biggies? Is this anything new?
— Gutta Jwala (@Guttajwala) June 29, 2018
Sawant even went as far as to claim that she had been excluded from the lineup because she was not a part of the Gopichand academy.Â
Championships 2018 qualification date.
— prajakta sawant (@prajakta_sawant) June 29, 2018
I know why this injustice has happened because the players who have qualified for World Championships are from Gopichand Academy.
These things are happening for many years and now I cannot take this injustice. @BAI_Media @Ra_THORe pic.twitter.com/Ph74UwkDYV
However, the BAI defended its decision, saying that Sawant's entry was withdrawn since her partner Yogendra is a Malaysian citizen.
"Doubles partner of Prajakta is a Malaysian citizen. As such BAI is not empowered to send the name of a Malaysian citizen in the Indian team. That is why we have to withdraw the pair," BAI president Himanta Biswa Sarma told PTI.
Interestingly, Prajakta and Yogendran had competed in the 2017 World Championship at Glasgow. They lost in the second round to the Indian combo of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Sikki Reddy.
"What happened earlier I do not know. But as a responsible person, I cannot recommend entry of a Malaysian citizen from BAI. BAI can face a big problem if we do that without clearance of MEA and the sports
Sawant and Yogendran have been playing together for the last year and a half. She has been struggling to get Indian partners in mixed doubles and is being sponsored by The New Vision Badminton Academy in Kuala Lumpur, owned by Yogendran, since 2014. She has been locked in a legal battle with the BAI and chief coach P Gopichand since filing a case in November 2012 in the Bombay High Court, when she accused Gopichand of causing "mental harassment" after she was refused entry to the national coaching camp in Hyderabad.
