Tennis star Sania Mirza was on Saturday conferred with the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna — the country’s highest sporting honour — while shooting sensation Jitu Rai was among the Arjuna award recipients in a glittering ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here.
President Pranab Mukherjee presented the award to Sania, clad in a maroon saree and blue blazer, amid thunderous applause at the Durbar hall where Sports Minister Sarbananda Sonowal was among the attendees.
Sania became the second tennis player to receive the country’s highest sporting honour after leander Paes on a day when Sports Ministry was fighting a court case that raised questions against its process of selecting the awardees.
The President also gave away the Arjuna awards even as the line-up was low on star power in the absence of cricketer Rohit Sharma, who missed the ceremony alongside boxer Mandeep Jangra and quarter miler M R Poovamma. In all, the (retired) Justice V K Bali led panel had recommended 17 names for Arjuna.
Sania, who attracted the loudest applause from the esteemed gathering at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, received a medal, certificate and cash prize of `7.5 lakh. She had flown in just to receive the award ahead of the US Open starting in New York on Monday.
The Arjuna awardees received statuettes, certificates and award money of `5 lakh each.
The ceremony, however, was shrouded in controversy with the ignored athletes and coaches not accepting the recommendations of the Ministry-appointed panel.
Just when it seemed there would be no controversy in the lead up to this year’s function, para-athlete H N Girisha approached the Karnataka High Court challenging Sania’s recommendation for Khel Ratna.
While Girisha will still be hopeful of getting the award later, another court case pending is of wrestling coach Vinod Kumar, who went to Delhi High Court claiming he was more deserving for the Dronacharya award than his rival Anoop Singh, whose name was recommended by the government-appointed panel. It will be known in the next weeks whether he gets the Dronacharya or not.
This is a huge honour: Sania
Mirza later said it was a ‘huge honour’ to be conferred with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and the recognition will push her further to do well on the professional tour and next year’s Rio Olympics.
Amongst Sania’s many achievements, what stands out is her women’s doubles triumph at Wimbledon with partner Martina Hingis earlier this year, becoming doubles world number one and now the Khel Ratna, country’s highest sporting honour.
“I would not like to pick any and say one was a bigger achievement than the other. It is a simply a huge honour to get this award. It has been an amazing year so far, becoming the world number one and winning the Wimbledon of course,” Sania said after receiving the award from President Pranab Mukherjee.
Sania got the honour with the awards mired in controversy again. Her recommendation for Khel Ratna was challenged by para-athlete H N Girisha in the Karnataka High Court, which sent notices to the Sports Ministry and the tennis player herself.
Asked about controversies year after year in the National Sports Awards, Sania bluntly refused to comment.
The star further said that she is looking forward to the US Open starting on Monday and is not thinking about Rio Olympics yet.