Sports ministry object Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu’’s parents being included in CWG contingent as officials
SportsCafe
The central sports ministry is not impressed with the inclusion of Saina Nehwal’s father and PV Sindhu’s mother as the team officials for the upcoming Commonwealth Games. As a consequence, they are likely to be told to bear their own expenses or be funded by the badminton federation in Australia.
The Badminton Federation of India (BFI) picked Harvir Singh, Saina’s father, and Vijaya Sindhu, PV Sindhu’s mother, as members of the 330-member Indian contingent that will travel to Gold Coast for the Commonwealth Games. However, this happened without any discussion with the central sports ministry and after getting to know about this, the ministry has objected the move.
While sports minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore is supposed to take a final call on the matter today, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Narinder Batra requested Rathore not to strike off any names from the list and instead suggested that the ‘extra’ officials will be sent at “no cost to government”.
“We have told the ministry that the federation will be spending for each official who falls outside the quota allotted to us. However, if the government does not clear a name, we cannot take them. So we have asked the ministry to look into the matter,” Batra was quoted as saying by the Indian Express.
However, it was not only Saina and Sindhu’s parents whose names came under the scrutiny. Shooting coaches Ronak Pandit and Jaspal Rana, wrestling coach Rajeev Tomar, para-athletes manager Satya Sangwan and contingent’s chief medical officer Arun Mendiratta are among the 15 names whose participation at the Games is still uncertain.
As per the rules and regulations of the Commonwealth Games, the number of officials cannot be more than one-third of the total contingent size. And Batra stated that India can still send 74 officials, including coaches, physios and managers to support the 222 athletes selected for the Games. But at the moment, the eventual list that has been prepared has a total of 76 officials and 32 ‘extra officials’, which include 11 IOA members.
A sports ministry official, meanwhile, revealed that no role was assigned to Saina and Sindhu’s parents, but Batra argued that the IOA could not shoot down Saina and Sindhu’s ‘request’ as the government is not going to bear their expenses.
“I don’t know why the sports ministry is not agreeing to clear the parents of Sindhu and Saina to accompany them. The government is not going to bear their expenses,” Batra said.
“These shuttlers are our big sporting stars now and we should be supporting them. If a Virat Kohli or a Sachin Tendulkar had wanted to do the same as Sindhu and Saina are requesting now, will they (ministry) say no to them also?”
However, it is not the first time that athletes’ parents have been allowed to travel with the team and at the 2014 Asian Games, Sania Mirza’s mother was named as the manager of the women’s tennis team. While Saina’s father has routinely travelled with her for international tournaments, including the Rio Olympics, he has never been part of the official contingent.
