New Delhi, Sep 4: In Rajyawardhan Singh Rathore, we’ve got the first sportsperson-minister to head the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Over the last 26 years, we’ve had politicians, ex-bureaucrats and an actor (Sunil Dutt) as Sports Minister. In terms of field of expertise, Rathore is the best-qualified Sports Minister India has ever had.
It’s not that world-class sportspersons have not entered Parliament in the past — we’ve had Aslam Sher Khan, Karni Singh, Chetan Chauhan, Kirti Azad, Navjot Singh Sidhu and Mohammad Azharuddin as MPs. None of them, however, made it to the Sports Ministry.
Colonel Rathore, the first Indian shooter to win a medal at the Olympics (in double trap, Athens 2004), took voluntary retirement from Indian Army in 2013 and joined the BJP, and was elected as an MP from Jaipur Rural the next year. He was the best-qualified MP to head the Sports Ministry in 2014, though the job went to Sarbananda Sonowal before Jitendra Singh took over as a stop-gap arrangement for less than two months last year. In July 2016, Vijay Goel was named the Sports Minister.
Source Tribune India
