The Union Sports Secretary Injeti Srinivas on Saturday made it clear that Saketh Myneni was “no less deserving” than Rohan Bopanna for the prestigious Arjuna award despite questions being raised about his merit.
There has been some controversy after Bopanna’s name was not sent by the All India Tennis Association for the honour. He felt slighted as Myneni’s gold and silver at the Incheon Asian Games got more weightage.
“In tennis, we already had an application (Myneni), who is by no means less deserving and you can’t make your own judgement (as to who is deserving and who’s not). The applicant (Myneni) has made India proud at the Asian Games.
“That performance got him marks and his case was entitled to be considered,” Srinivas said during an interaction.
Srinivas, who is also the Sports Authority of India (SAI) DG, admitted that Bopanna’s achievements couldn’t be ignored but a due process needed to be followed.
“Rohan Bopanna’s achievements, nobody can ignore that. He has had the highest achievements but there is a process. So somebody has to nominate you, you need to sign an application, whether that system is best, is debatable,” Srinivas said.
“For example, in case of Padma awards, you don’t send applications. It’s more by selection and here you make an application, give evidence of your achievements, that gets examined very carefully and a decision is taken. So in Bopanna’s case, there was no nomination and there was no application,” Srinivas clarified.
“As much as we try but it is practically impossible to make the current system totally objective. If we could have such a system, then you would not need a committee. You would just rank them on the basis of marks assigned to them and declare the winners,” he said.