Hoodas used wrestlers like Pandavas did Draupadi: Former WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh
Gonda (UP), Sep 8: Former BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh on Sunday accused the Hooda family of Congress of conspiring against him by using wrestlers as wager just as Pandavas had put Draupadi at stake.
Singh, a former chief of Wrestling Federation of India, was last year accused of sexual assault by several female wrestlers, who sat on a protest for weeks demanding a probe against him.
At his residence on Sunday, he told reporters, "In the gambling which took place in Mahabharat, Draupadi was put at stake. The Pandavas lost. The country is still not able to accept their reasons for doing it."
He added, "The Hooda family … put the honour of daughters and sisters at stake. The future generation will not forgive them for this and they will always be held guilty for this."
Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia, who is an Olympic bronze-medallist, along with another Olympic bronze-winner Sakshi Malik spearheaded the agitation last year.
Singh said, "Bajrang Punia's mental condition has deteriorated. He had put his wife at stake. I want to ask him why he went to play in the Asian Games without trials?"
Asked about the wrestlers' protest in Delhi, Singh said, "There was no protest of wrestlers in Delhi. It was a family protest. When we say wrestlers, a group comes. Are wrestlers not in Punjab, Haryana? Are they not in Maharashtra, Bihar, UP, Bengal and Himachal?"
He accused Congress leader Deepender Hooda of leading the protest at Delhi's Jantar Mantar. "Priyanka Gandhi also used to come."
On Saturday, Singh, the former BJP MP from Kaiserganj, had said that Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia were used by the Congress as "pawns" in a "conspiracy" to take control of the Wrestling Federation of India.
Singh first got control of WFI in 2012 after a bitter turf war with Deepender Singh Hooda.
The agitation forced Singh, a six-time Lok Sabha MP from the Kaiserganj constituency, to step down from the position of WFI head. He is currently facing criminal charges in a court.
After his ouster, his close aide Sanjay Singh was elected as the head of WFI but the body is yet to get recognition from the sports ministry, even though the world governing body for wrestling, UWW, has endorsed it.
On Friday, Phogat and Punia joined the Congress with a vow of "not being scared or backing off."
Subsequently, the Congress released its first list of 32 candidates for the Haryana Assembly polls, fielding former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda from Garhi Sampla-Kiloi, state unit chief Udai Bhan from Hodal and Vinesh Phogat from Julana.
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Thiruvananthapuram: An article in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) mouthpiece Organiser has stated that the Catholic Church of India holds more land than the Waqf Board, which has long been believed to be the second-largest landowner in the country.
The article, titled "Who has more land in India? The Catholic Church vs Waqf Board Debate," as cited by The New Indian Express, challenges the commonly held view and asserts that the Catholic Church is the largest non-governmental landholder in India.
"For many years, there has been a common belief that the Waqf Board is the second largest landowner in India after the government, however, this claim does not align with the actual data on land ownership in the country. The Catholic Church of India holds the distinction of being the largest non-governmental landowner, possessing vast tracts of land spread across the country,” the article stated.
The Church is said to own approximately 17.29 crore acres (7 crore hectares) of land, with an estimated value of Rs 20,000 crore.
The article further noted the significant influence of the Catholic Church in India’s real estate landscape, listing scores of schools, hospitals, nursing colleges, and other institutions under its management. “As of 2012, the Catholic Church has 2,457 hospital dispensaries, 240 medical or nursing colleges, 28 general colleges, 5 engineering colleges, 3,765 secondary schools, 7,319 primary schools and 3,187 nursery schools in the field of education and healthcare sector in the country. Much of its land was acquired during British rule. In 1927, the British administration passed the Indian Church Act, facilitating large-scale land grants to the Church," it added.
However, the Organiser article also raised contentious issues, alleging that some of the Church's land acquisitions might have been questionable. It suggested that the Church’s charitable services, particularly in education and healthcare, could be a way of luring economically disadvantaged individuals into converting to Christianity, with some reports claiming that tribal and rural landowners were coerced into converting in exchange for Church-run services.
“Several cases have surfaced where tribal lands, once belonging to indigenous communities, were gradually transferred to Church authorities under various pretexts," the article stated.
This published write-up comes at a time when BJP leaders, particularly in Kerala, are celebrating the passing of the Waqf Amendment Bill, which they have described as a "gift" to the Munambam protesters, who are led by the Catholic Church.
Interestingly, Organiser has deleted the article after it was published.
