Arjunas, the day after: No awards & lots of words

The most vocal was discus thrower Anil Kumar, who said he’d missed the bus for the sixth time in a row — but was not contemplating retirement as is Bobby Aloysius.

‘‘I will have to do it, at least for my mother’’, he said, joined at a press conference by two former Arjuna awardees — Rajkumar Sangwan (boxing) and Sanjay Kumar (wrestling).

Sanjay spoke of how he was ignored for the award until Guru Hanuman started a campaign, from a tent pitched at Rajghat, to get him justice. (It’s a cue Olympian wrestler Anuj Kumar has picked up, saying he would go on a hunger strike at Rajghat from tomorrow.)

Anil said he had approached Delhi High Court for justice but, ‘‘except for ensuring inclusion of eminent sportspersons in the committees, there has been hardly any change in the procedure adopted to pick the awardees. Merit alone was not the consideration then and even today it is the same case,’’ he said.

Referring to Bobby Aloysius’s anguished public letter, Anil said things can change only if Sports Minister Sunil Dutt intervenes. ‘‘We have been victimised for reasons best known to the powers that be. The minister can set the anomalies right and we appeal to him to intervene and see reason,’’ he said.