The Badminton Association of India (BAI) recommends two Olympic-bound shuttlers B Sai Praneeth and Kidambi Srikanth for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award along with three players for Arjuna Award.
Praneeth had won a bronze medal at the 2019 World Championship and is the only men’s singles player to qualify for the Tokyo Games. As his partner, Kidambi has not been succeeding of late but had won four titles in 2017.
The BAI has also nominated HS Prannoy, Pranav Jerry Chopra and Sameer Verma for the Arjuna Award. The Federation had sent the application of 5 Muralidharan and PU Bhaskar Babu for the Dronacharya award. Muralidharan is a recipient of the Dronacharya Life Time achievement award. Leroy D’sa and PVV Lakshmi have been nominated for the Dhyanchand award.
The sources within BAI reported ANI, “This time we have given two names (Kidambi Srikanth and Sai Praneeth) for the Khel Ratna award and for Arjuna Award we have recommended HS Prannoy, Pranav Jerry Chopra and Sameer Verma.”
Last year Manika Batra, Rohit Sharma, Vinesh Phogat, Rani Rampal, and Mariyappan Phangavelu were awarded the Khel Ratna Award. The Minter of Youth affairs and Sports had earlier decided to extend the last date of submission of application for the upcoming National Sports Award 2021.
