The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) has walked into an unnecessary controversy. The selection committee of the rifle and pistol team has dropped Annu Raj Singh and has replaced her with Pushpanjali Rana. Annu Raj’s name was on the original list that was announced on July 15. But in the meeting held on Tuesday, Rana was selected. The changes in effect has the potential to hurt both Heena Sidhu and Rahi Sarnobat and the Indian team’s chances. As per the tournament rules, a country can field only 5 women pistol shooters in two events - 25m sports pistol and 10m air pistol. Out of these, one can take part in both. But unless the shooter is good in both events, her score could jeopardise the team placements and medals. In Annu Raj’s absence, Rahi will have to take the added responsibility for the team and shoot well in the 10m air pistol event at the worlds, while Heena will do the same at the Asian Games in 25 metre sports pistol. Interestingly, for both Rahi and Heena, the second event is not their strongest. Rahi has been one of the better performers in sports pistol - both her World Cup medals coming in the 25m competition. But in the 10m air, she has been known to struggle. The same goes for world No.5 Heena, who has not been shooting the 25m event and isn’t even on the national rankings list. Change questioned Not surprisingly, a few among the shooting fraternity have questioned this change. “This is not the right thing to do. Shouldn’t we be sending our best team so that we can win medals? The decision to use Rahi and Heena will hurt our chances badly,” said a source on condition of anonymity. But chief coach and member of the selection committee Mohinder Lal insisted the change was done on merit as Rana was ranked higher as per the latest list. “It was only done based on numbers, nothing else. Annu was ranked seventh, few juniors are ranked above her. In Rana’s case, she was ranked higher, so she was included,” Lal told The Indian Express. What Lal did not say was the fact that the four pistol shooters — Malaika Goel, Yashaswini Singh Deswal, P Shri Nivetha and Shreya Gawande — who are above Annu in the 10m air pistol national rankings list, are all junior shooters who will participate in the junior championships. And like the convention of letting the juniors concentrate on the junior competition and one which was followed in the July meeting, Annu becomes the ‘third’ ranked shooter in 10m air pistol. What further puts a question mark on the decision is while Rana’s name has been included, there have been others who have been ignored though they are ranked in the top three. Malaika is ranked third in 10m air pistol, but she has been ignored for the senior worlds. Apurvi Chandela’s case is similar - she is ranked third in the 10m air rifle but isn’t part of the senior team. “Even if for an instance I agree to the fact that Rana’s case was genuine, why weren’t others, who are similarly ranked above, included then? There has to be some consistency somewhere. Right now this decision smacks of bias and I think was done in haste,” added the source.
