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Sports and politics go hand-in-hand. Often politicians make big promises to athletes for winning medals at international events but later fail to fulfil similar promises causing massive embarrassment for themselves and trouble for athletes. Numerous such instances have taken place but the latest accusation has been made against Punjab's sports minister Pargat Singh by a specially-abled Chess player from the state.

Malika Handa, who has won gold and two silver medals at the World Deaf Chess Championships, alleged that the State government has informed her recently they can't give her a job and cash reward as the government does not have any such policy for deaf sports. She expressed her disappointment on social media.

"I am only asking why it was announced. I wasted 5 years on the Congress government. They fool me.. they don't care deaf people's sports. The District Congress all told me that the support promised to me after 5 years that happened is nothing now. Why is the Punjab govt doing this ? (sic)," she added. According to Handa, the incumbent Punjab Sports Minister Pargat Singh informed her that the promise was made by the minister in the previous government and the current government cannot do anything about it. She also added that her five years got wasted.

Handa's mother, Renu also slammed the Punjab government and its Sports Minister Pargat Singh for not giving her daughter a job and cash reward promised to her by the earlier Amarinder Singh-led government. She was reportedly quoted saying that, "Handa will certainly get angry as Punjab government promises but does not fulfil. For the past five years, they have only been promising. We also got an invitation letter that Malika will be given a cash award but due to Covid the program got postponed but after that, the government did not last. Channi's government came and we went to him and he said that we will give cash awards to players and Malika will be the top priority but Malika's name was not there", Renu said.