Anil Vij, the sports minister of Haryana, led a nine-member delegation to Rio to support team India, especially sportspersons from Haryana; to facilitate them and know the challenges faced by them and solve the issue. He tweeted ‘leading a contingent to Olympics to encourage the Haryana players’.
However, it turned out to be a Rs 1 crore trip to Rio beaches was paid by state exchequer. The ministers and the team skipped the events and went on to the beaches.
They reached Rio on Sunday night (Aug 14). However they did not attend any match next day, they even missed the quarterfinal bout of Vikas Krishan, DSP in the Haryana Police.
Discus thrower Seema Antil and Greco-Roman wrestler Ravinder Khatri, both are from Haryana, they competed on Monday, but the Vij-led delegation skipped their matches too on that day.
Tuesday wasn’t any better; they spent most of the time on the beaches and exploring the city, missing Haryana Greco-Roman wrestler Hardeep Singh’s bout.
The delegation includes two BJP MLAs, Gyanchand Gupta and Randhir Singh Kapriwas; chief minister’s media adviser Amit Arya, Additional chief secretary-sports, KK Khandelwal, joint director-sports, OP Sharma along with Anil Vij and his private secretary and Khandelwal’s private secretary.
A member of Indian contingent from the state said to Hindustan Times, “It is the mockery of the system. On one side the sports department has failed to provide basic facilities to the players at the grassroots level and no consumable sports items have been procured for the last two years. On the other side, they (sports department) are spending lakhs of rupees on the Rio visit. The delegation has not even bothered to come and see the match of Vikas Krishan,”
The Logical Indian requests Government to intervene in the matter and take action against the minister. It is appalling to see taxpayer’s money spent on minister’s vacation, who is not at all interested in sports and whether we are even performing or not.
