Launching a veiled attack on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports Anurag Thakur on Sunday said that a young leader of a political party is shying away from even congratulating champions and medal winners.
Speaking to mediapersons, Thakur said, "On one hand, there is a Lok Sabha MP (Tejasvi Surya) who is organising sports events to create awareness. And there is another young leader from a political party who is shying away from even congratulating our champions and medal winners. I do not know why."
Earlier on Sunday Anurag Thakur played a volleyball match along with BJP MP Tejasvi Surya in Bengaluru.
The Indian contingent finished their campaign at the Tokyo Paralympic Games 2020 at an all-time high by securing a total of 19 medals which includes 5 gold, 8 silver, and 6 bronze medals. India sent its biggest ever contingent of 54 para-athletes across as many as 9 sporting disciplines at the Games. Badminton and Taekwondo made their debut in Tokyo, both of which were represented by India.
Since making its first appearance at the Paralympics in 1968, India had won 12 medals in total till the 2016 Rio edition. The country has now massively improved upon that entire number by 7 medals at the Tokyo Paralympics 2020 alone. Out of a total of 162 nations, India have finished 24th in the overall medal tally, while its accomplishment of 19 medals is ranked 20th based on the number of medals.
The Gold medalists from the Indian contingent at Tokyo Paralympics were: Avani Lekhara in Women's 10m Air Rifle Standing SH1, Pramod Bhagat in Men's singles SL3 badminton, Krishna Nagar in Men's singles SH6 badminton, Sumit Antil in Men's Javelin Throw F64, and Manish Narwal in Mixed 50m Pistol SH1.
Silver medalists were Bhavinaben Patel in Women's Singles Class 4 Table Tennis, Singhraj Adhana in Mixed 50m Pistol SH1, Yogesh Kathuniya in Men's Discus F56, Nishad Kumar in Men's High Jump T47, Mariyappan Thangavelu in Men's High Jump T63, Praveen Kumar in Men's High Jump T64, Devendra Jhajharia in Men's Javelin F46, and, Suhas Yathiraj in Men's Singles Badminton SL4.
Bronze medalists were Avani Lekhara in Women's 50m Rifle 3 Positions SH1, Harvinder Singh in Men's Individual Recurve Archery, Sharad Kumar in Men's High Jump T63, Sundar Singh Gurjar in Men's Javelin Throw F46, Manoj Sarkar in Men's Singles Badminton SL3, and Singhraj Adhana in Men's 10m Air Pistol SH1.
( With inputs from ANI )
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