Srikanth's racquet gets highest bid, Rs 51 lakh, at e-auction for PM Modi's mementoes

Kidambi Srikanth's Badminton racquet fetched Rs 51 lakh, the highest amount, among all the items available to be bought at the the e-auction of Prime Minister's mementos which closed this week, the PM Mementoes website showed.

Last year, the most expensive item from this e-auction had been Neeraj Chopra's javelin used in the Tokyo Olympics, which had gone for an amount of Rs 1.5 crore.

The money from the e-auction will go to the Namami Gange Mission, according to the press statement from the Ministry of Culture.

The gifts were on display at an exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi over the last month.

There were 25 new sporting memorabilia among the items on display this year. Sports items were among the most bid upon items from the auction. Some of the other items which received high bids were a T-shirt autographed by Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games Gold medallist Manish Narwal (Rs 50.25 lakh) and a T-shirt autographed by para-powerlifter Sudhir, who secured the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games 2022 (Rs 50.20 lakh).

A pair of red boxing gloves autographed by World Champion and Commonwealth Games gold medalist Nikhat Zareen fetched Rs 50 lakh.

A memento of the recently concluded Chess Olympiad got Rs 19.72 lakh.

A model of the Kashi Vishwanath temple complex, which was presented to the PM by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, was the highest grossing non-sports item at Rs 50 lakh.