Olympic medallist Yogeshwar Dutt, fellow wrestler Babita Phogat and former India hockey star Sandeep Singh were among the 78 candidates announced by the BJP for the Haryana assembly elections to be held on October 21.
Dutt and Babita Phogat will contest polls from Baroda and Dadri respectively, and Sardar Singh will fight elections from Pehowa. Babita and her father Mahavir Phogat had joined the BJP in August this year, while Dutt and Singh joined the saffron party earlier this month.
The first list of candidates was released today after the BJP held the Central Election Committee meeting yesterday to finalise its candidates for the assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra.
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Dutt won a bronze at the 2012 London Olympics and was awarded the Padma Shri in 2013. He also won a gold medal in the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
Babita, too, won a gold at the 2014 CWG and she became a household name after Dangal—a film about the struggles of her father Mahavir to train her and her sister Geeta Phogat—became a runaway hit.
Meanwhile, Singh—the former captain of the Indian national hockey team—was seriously injured when he was accidentally shot in 2006 while on his way to join the national team which was due to leave for the World Cup in Africa two days later.
He was on the wheelchair for a year but regained his position in the team and played in the 2010 World Cup for India. The film Soorma was based on his life.
