As Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia join Congress, Brij Bhushan dubs wrestlers' protest a conspiracy

Gonda: A day after Olympic medallists Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia joined the Congress, former WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh said on Saturday that the Congress used the wrestlers as "pawns" in their "conspiracy" to take control of the Wrestling Federation of India and attack the BJP, 

The senior BJP leader said that he had defeated Congress' Deepender Hooda in the 2012 election to the WFI, which is why they nursed a grudge against him.

Asked about Phogat and Punia, the two prominent faces of the protest against Singh over charges of sexual harassment, he said, "They were faces... they were mohrey (pawns). They were used like pawns by (former Haryana chief minister) Bhupinder Hooda, the Congress and the Congress family."

"This was all conspired to gain a hold on the Wrestling Federation of India and to attack the BJP and its ideology...This team of Rahul, the Congress, keeps doing this thing," he told PTI.

When asked about Vinesh Phogat's assertions that no woman should face what she had to, Singh said, "What happened with her? The incident that she alleges happened when I was in Lucknow. Time will tell the truth." The Congress has fielded Phogat from the Julana assembly seat in Haryana, while Punia has been made the working chairman of the All India Kisan Congress.