New Delhi: Olympic medal winner Bajrang Punia on Friday, December 22, said he “can’t live [his] life as a Padma Shri awardee while our women wrestlers are insulted”.Punia was stopped by Delhi Police on Friday when he set out to return his award to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his residence. When the police stopped him from moving ahead at Kartavya Path, he left his Padma Shri medallion on a footpath, which the police picked up.In an open letter to Modi, posted on his X (Twitter) account, Punia said he was returning his Padma Shri in protest against the election of Sanjay Singh, an alleged loyalist of BJP parliamentarian and sexual harassment accused Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, as Wrestling Federation of India president.मैं अपना पद्मश्री पुरस्कार प्रधानमंत्री जी को वापस लौटा रहा हूँ. कहने के लिए बस मेरा यह पत्र है. यही मेरी स्टेटमेंट है। 🙏🏽 pic.twitter.com/PYfA9KhUg9— Bajrang Punia 🇮🇳 (@BajrangPunia) December 22, 2023“I am putting my medal on the letter written to PM Modi. I will not take this medal back home,” he told the media when he was stopped by Delhi Police, according to The Telegraph. The police picked up both the letter and the medal.Punia’s decision to return the award comes a day after a tearful Sakshi Malik, another wrestler, announced her decision to quit wrestling following the election of Sanjay Singh. Along with Vinesh Phogat, Punia, and Malik had led the protest against the former WFI chief.“When I reflect on this day, these medals and awards hurt me, and I wonder why we were even given these when we fought for our daughters and sisters, and we failed. I feel that I am not suitable for this award. The federation was formed to support the players, not to demean and push them to the limits of retirement,” Punia told the media.Adding further, he said, “When the women wrestlers are not given due respect, I do not deserve this honour either. We were on the road for 40 days, but the promises made by the government have not been fulfilled. Our fight is not against the government, but against an individual. I believe in the judiciary but, with what is happening, I can’t keep faith in the system.”However, he made it clear that he would not give up wrestling. “This will not have an impact on my wrestling career, and I am preparing for the Paris Olympics,” he added.In his open letter to Modi, he wrote, “Sports have empowered our women athletes and changed their lives but the situation is such that the women who could have been the brand ambassadors of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao are now leaving the sport. And we, the wrestlers who were awarded, could not do anything.”On Sanjay Singh’s election as WFI chief, his letter said, ” “We shed tears the entire night. We did not understand what to do or where to go. The government has given us a lot. I was conferred with the Padma Shri in 2019 and I also received the Arjuna and Khel Ratna awards. When I got these awards, I was on cloud nine. But today the sadness weighs more and the reason is a women wrestler left the sport because of (fears over) her security.”It should be noted that there is no official provision for the ‘return’ of Padma awards. This is not the first time that someone sought to ‘return’ their award; in 2020, former Punjab chief minister Prakash Singh Badal ‘returned’ his Padma award in protest against the three farm laws enacted by the Modi government.“While an awardee may announce his decision to return the award for whatever reason, Padma Awards regulations do not cover this eventuality. They only allow cancellation and annulment of the awards by the President, without specifying the grounds. The awardee continues to be in the register of Padma recipients maintained under directions of the President, until his/her award is annulled. The rules provide for cancellation of such annulment by the President,” Times of India quoted an official as saying.