Renaming Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award a political game: Shiv Sena

Ground Report | New Delhi: Renaming Rajiv Gandhi Khel; Shiv Sena has slammed the BJP-led central government for renaming India's highest sports award. The party, in its mouthpiece 'Saamana', has accused the central government of doing politics and keeping revenge and animosity. The Central Government last week renamed the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award as Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award.

Saamana wrote in its editorial, "Major Dhyan Chand could have been respected without insulting the sacrifice of Rajiv Gandhi. India has lost that tradition and culture. Today Dhyan Chand must be feeling the same."

He further wrote, "Today at a time when the whole country is celebrating the golden hour of India's performance in the Tokyo Olympics, the central government has played a political game. Many people are hurt because of this sport."

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In its editorial, Saamana has made a direct attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. He has written that the government has claimed that the decision to change the name has been taken under the public sentiment, but there is no dispute about it because Congress also used to do the same.

Renaming Rajiv Gandhi Khel

Saamana wrote, "Amit Shah's words are 100% correct. There is no point in arguing on his statement because in the last 70 years the Congress governments have done what was done by Nehru, Gandhi, Rao, Manmohan, Morarji, Deve Gowda, Gujral, Chandrashekhar. The work has been done to make the works shine." He further wrote, "Governments are not run by revenge and malice, and this is also a public sentiment which should be taken care of."

Raising further questions on the name change, Shiv Sena further wrote, "BJP political players are saying that did Rajiv Gandhi ever take hockey in his hand? The question is reasonable, but when Narendra Modi changed the name of Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad. But if kept, did he also do something amazing in cricket. And when the stadium in Delhi was named after Arun Jaitley. The same criteria may apply there too. People are asking these questions."

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Saamana wrote, "Indira Gandhi was assassinated by terrorists. Rajiv Gandhi also lost his life in a terrorist attack. There may be differences of opinion with him. Differences have a place in a democracy, but the sacrifices of both the Prime Ministers, who made this mistake." Contributed a lot to the progress of the country, cannot be made fun of."

He further wrote, "Renaming the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award as Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award is a political game, not a public sentiment."

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