Double Paralympics gold winner Devendra Jhajharia elected unopposed as PCI president

Two-time Paralympics gold medallist Devendra Jhajharia was on Saturday elected unopposed as the Paralympic Committee of India (PCI) president, succeeding another celebrated para athlete Deepa Malik.

The 42-year-old javelin thrower, who had won a gold medal each in the 2004 Athens and 2016 Rio Paralympics in the F46 disability category, was the only candidate in the fray for the top post.

In fact, all the new office bearers were elected unopposed.

The PCI elections were held for the posts of president, two vice-presidents, secretary general, treasurer, two joint secretaries and five executive committee members.

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Initially, eight candidates filed their nomination papers for the post of five executive committee members but three of them later withdrew from the contest.

It was more about completing the formalities as the returning officer Umesh Sinha handed the election certificates to all the new office bearers led by Jhajharia, who is also fighting the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on a BJP ticket from his hometown of Churu in Rajasthan.

Jayawant Hammanawar, an international coach and referee from Goa, was elected unopposed as the secretary general.

R. Chandrashekhar and Satya Prakash Sangwan will be the two vice-presidents, while Sunil Pradhan was the lone candidate for the treasurer’s post. Lalit Thakur and T. Diwakara are the two joint-secretaries.

Last month, the sports ministry suspended the PCI after the Deepa Malik-led dispensation did not hold elections on time. But on March 5, the ministry revoked the suspension after the PCI initiated the election process.

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Jhajharia, who hails from Rajasthan, also won a silver medal in the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021. He clinched a world championships gold in 2013 and a silver in 2015 (both F46 category) as well as a silver in the Asian Para Games in 2014.

He has many firsts to his name. He is the lone Padma Bhushan award winner (2022) among the para athletes, besides being the only Indian double Paralympics gold medallist.

He was awarded the Khel Ratna in 2017 and was earlier conferred with the Arjuna Award (2004) and Padma Shri (2012).