Retired wrestler and now a Congress candidate from Haryana’s Julana assembly, Vinesh Phogat, in a recent interview with a YouTube channel, disclosed that she refused to speak with Prime Minister Narendra Modi after her disqualification from the recent Paris Olympics 2024.

According to Phogat, two of the officials contacted her and told her that PM wanted to talk to her. Phogat stated that she agreed to do it, but then some conditions were put in place.

Phogat said that she was told that a call would happen without any of her team present, and there would be two people from the PM’s side to record the conversation for social media.

To which, Phogat refused to go ahead with the call. In the interview, she said that she was ready to call if it wasn’t to be publicised on social media. According to Phogat, she was not ready to let her emotions and hard work be exploited for political purposes.

If the PM genuinely cared about the athletes, he would have called without social media, Phogat reportedly stated.

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Referring to the wrestlers’ protest against BJP’s Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who was accused of inappropriate behaviour with wrestlers by Phogat and other wrestlers, she said that maybe PM knew that Vinesh would talk about it and therefore she was instructed to have a phone from their end.

I was instructed that way so that they could edit the video from their end. I would have posted the original video, and therefore they denied it, stated Phogat.

Vinesh Phogat, after qualifying for the finals in her weight category and one hand on gold, was heartbreakingly disqualified after she weighted marginally more than her weight class on the morning of her final.

She announced her retirement shortly afterwards and joined Congress ahead of the Haryana Assembly elections.

Earlier, along with Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik were prominent faces of the protests against then-WFI (Wrestling Federation of India) chief Brij Bhushan Singh, alleging the BJP leader of harassing women wrestlers.