Former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s loyalist Sanjay Singh was elected the new president of the federation as his panel comfortably won most of the posts in the delayed WFI presidential polls on Thursday.

Singh secured 40 votes against the seven that the other candidate Anita Sheoran won.

He said after winning, “Jinko kushti karni hai woh kushti karein. Jinko rajneeti karni hain woh rajneeti karein. (Wrestlers who want to compete, they should wrestle. Those who want to do politics, should do politics). It’s triumph for thousands of wrestlers in the country who suffered in the past seven-eight months.”

Who is Sanjay Singh?

Sanjay Singh is a part of the Brij Bhushan Singh faction. He is the UP Wrestling Association’s Vice President.

Hailing from Varanasi’s Jhhansi village, Singh has served as the WFI’s previous executive council. He has also been the national federation’s joint secretary since 2019.

As reported by The Quint, Singh is widely known as ‘Bablu’ in the wrestling circles.

Singh, who was born into a business family, told The Quint that his father Nand Lal Singh used to organise wrestling matches in his village that piqued his interest in the sport.

Before he joined WFI, Singh was affiliated with local wrestling competitions.

As per a report by Lallantop, Singh was the District President of the Varanasi Wrestling Association in 2008. When the Uttar Pradesh Wrestling Association was formed in 2009, Brij Bhushan became the state president and Sanjay Singh was the vice president. The report also says that Singh has played an essential role in bringing the women wrestlers of UP’s Purvanchal region forward.

In an interview with BBC, Singh said, “Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and we have family ties and we have been close to each other for the last three decades.”