What is it about sports bodies that makes an official insensitive towards his wife under anesthesia and Brij Bhushan cling to power at all cost | Sport-others News

There’s this true story about a Delhi cricket adminrator’s single-minded obsession with holding on to power that is hard to believe for those who haven’t spent enough time in Feroz Shah Kotla’s dark and dingy corridors of intrigue. It so happened that on the eve of a crucial local election, the wife of the incumbent eyeing to retain his influential position at the DDCA complained of stomach ache and had to be admitted to a hospital. Citing an emergency, the doctors planned a minor surgery for the next morning. Mr Adminrator was in a fix.Those present at the hospital that night recall a sickening conversation between the restless cricket adminrator keen to be at Kotla on voting day and the outraged doctor. “He was informed that the operation would need general anesthesia and his wife would regain consciousness after two hours,” recalls an old Delhi cricket veteran. “His reply blew us away. Without batting an eyelid, he asked the doctor – ‘Any chance you can adminer anesthesia for four hours as that would allow me that much more time at the Kotla as our panel needs to be re-elected.”
late evening, he was part of the victory celebration at Kotla. Around him were men with garlands around their necks, a bunch drunk on power. Visceral battle cries would hit the Kotla air. While an outsider is sure to get outraged the mixed-up priorities of the DDCA adminrator, in the brotherhood of Indian cricket adminrators, an example had been set. At Kotla, they still speak about the supreme sacrifice of one who chose cricket over family.
To understand this absurd pull that can drag someone from a spouse’s hospital bed to the stadium, one needs to understand the dog-eat-dog world of adminrators where playing the cards correctly could lead to a life of unquestionable power and endless perks.
BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh addresses the media after the Sports Minry suspended the newly-elected Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) body for not following rules, in New Delhi, Sunday, Dec. 24, 2023. (PTI Photo)
This week, former president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s dream of being de facto chief hit a hurdle. Having his tenure expired earlier this year, Bhushan’s aide Sanjay Singh was elected WFI president. But within days of the selection, the new body was suspended. Brij Bhushan “appears to be in complete control”, was the sports minry’s reasoning.
The life of a seasoned sports adminrator, with serious disregard for rules, can be divided into three phases. It all starts with the struggle to get into a federation that is a closed club. This is followed the tough climb to the hot seat. Winning back-to-back elections, the kind the DDCA official managed when his wife went under the knife, is a sure sign of consolidation of power and the forming of a coterie.

That’s the career-high for most adminrators but there are a handful who manage to take that extra step. The true legends, mind you it’s not a virtue, keep controlling a sports body without being part of it. To rule proxy, one needs to be a seasoned politician. You need to be Brij Bhushan Singh, a five-time BJP MP. He fits the bill to be a ringmaster without being in the ring.
All the king’s men
The other day at the Indian Olympic Association headquarters, at the end of the wrestling federation elections, Brij Bhushan’s supporters thought that he had swung it. Once it was clear that the odds-on favourite Sanjay Singh, Brij Bhushan’s old aide, had been elected president, the members raised both their hands and let out triumphant shouts. They looked like MLAs outside the Assembly after a show-of-strength head count.
In their glee at crossing the last high hurdle of adminrative immortality, nuance went out of the window. Now they were openly announcing to the world that their “Netaji” – facing sexual harassment charges top women wrestlers – was back. They had seen it coming. Within minutes, several tackily-designed colour posters with “Dabdaba hai, dabdaba rahega” (our authority will remain) printed on them magically appeared on the scene. Like at Kotla that day, Brij Bhushan was drowned in garlands and surrounded men drunk on power.

However, there was an anti-climax. The government intervened and Sanjay Singh’s panel, with Brij Bhushan’s blessings, lasted barely three days. So does it mean this is well and truly the end of Indian wrestling’s Netaji Era? Unlikely.
See the voting pattern of the WFI election to get the answers. The lone wrestler in the fray, Commonwealth Games gold medall Anita Sheoran, lost a margin of 40-7 to Brij Bhushan’s man Sanjay Singh. The detailed FIRs, the statement to the magrate those alleging sexual harassment Netaji, didn’t move the 40 members who voted for Brij Bhushan. The members were part of the closed cozy club with Brij Bhushan being the Big Boss. Change could wait, right now Netaji needed them and they obliged.
Had there been a change at the top and Anita had become WFI chief, the edifice of Brij Bhushan’s empire would have come tumbling down. It would have been great optics. But how could this all-men’s club allow a woman chief.

But what is it about sports bodies that makes a 5-time MP like Brij Bhushan cling to his chair? The power to decide the future of the country’s elite wrestlers, to be in the frame with national heroes at their time of glory, authority to use funds and the lure to have a fiefdom of one’s own are the few obvious benefits that come with the turf. Brij Bhushan’s reign at WFI was a throwback to a period of kings. Sitting on the stadium dias like a Maharaja, he would announce special gifts to winners and even snub referees. It was a power trip.

So when Brij Bhushan was announcing the tournament schedule and showing V signs to the cameras within hours of his man winning the election, it was obvious that he wasn’t going to walk away from his home – his MP residence and the WFI had the same address.
In a year when Olympic medall Sakshi Malik was dragged through the streets of the capital and ended hanging up her boots in disgust, 40 voting units chose to trust a politician with sexual harassment charges. For all its traditional facade of values, Indian wrestling remains an insensitive body run compassionless sports officials – the kind for whom their dabdaba is more important than the ailing wife in the operation theatre or long-suffering women wrestlers.
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