Sanjay Singh elected as new Wrestling Federation of India president

New Delhi: Sanjay Kumar Singh was elected as the new president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) after the much-awaited elections for the office bearers of the federation were held on Thursday at Olympic Bhawan, New Delhi.

Sanjay Singh, a former WFI president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh loyalist, defeated his opponent Anita Sheoran, a 2010 Commonwealth Games medallist, with an overwhelming majority. Sheoran was backed by the wrestlers protesting against Brij Bhushan, an accused of sexual assault and harassment against women's grapplers.

Of the 47 votes, Sanjay secured 40 votes, while Sheoran received the remaining seven, resulting in a clear victory for the vice president of the Uttar Pradesh Wrestling Association.

While Anita Sheoran lost, her supporter Devender Kartiyan, however, was elected as senior vice president, and Prem Chand Lochab was elected as the secretary general.

"It's a triumph for thousands of wrestlers in the country who suffered in the past 7-8 months," Sanjay Singh told reporters after his huge win.

"We will respond to politics with politics and wrestling with wrestling," Sanjay replied when asked about the politics being played within the federation.

The election of the new executive council will also pave the way for the lifting of the ban on WFI imposed by the UWW ban. The world governing body of the game had banned WFI for not conducting elections in time, forcing the Indian wrestlers to compete as neutral athletes at the 2023 World Championships.

The election process was set in motion in July but was delayed because of court cases by the state associations. The Supreme Court recently set aside the stay imposed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, paving the way for the process of electing the new WFI governing body.

List of elected office bearers of the Wrestling Federation of India