Gurugram: World Boxing Champion Saweety Boora has announced her intention to contest in the upcoming Haryana assembly elections as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from the Barwala assembly seat in Hisar.
Boora said this during an event Sunday in her maternal village Sarsaud, which falls under the Barwala assembly seat. Her native village Ghirai falls in the Hansi assembly seat of Hisar.
The event was organised by the people of Sarsaud and some neighboring villages to honour Boora’s achievements.
During this event, she expressed her intention to enter politics and said that if the BJP were to give her a ticket, she would surely win.
“I am a farmer’s daughter, and the farmers will surely bless their daughter. I am a regular worker of the BJP, and I will fulfill any responsibility given to me by the party. Even if I don’t get a ticket, I will continue to work for the party,” she said.
“Just as I made the country proud in sports and worked with the country’s interest in mind, I will also work with the country’s interest in mind in politics. I am ready to be the voice of women and daughters,” said Boora, who joined the BJP in January 2024 in Rohtak.
Contacted by ThePrint Monday, Boora said that more than her, people of the Barwala assembly seat want her to contest the election.
“In the event organised by Sarsaud and neghbouring villages Bichpadi, Jevra and Juglan, members of 36 biradari (all 36 communities living in Haryana) were present, as were panchs and sarpanchs from 22 villages of the Barwala assembly seat. They all wanted me to contest the upcoming assembly elections from Barwala,” she added.
Confident of victory if fielded from Barwala, the boxing champion said that she would, in fact, win the elections by a huge margin.
The BJP has never won the Barwala assembly seat. It went to Jannayak Janta Party’s (JJP) Jogi Ram Sihag in the 2019 assembly polls. However, Sihag had a falling out with JJP leader Dushyant Chautala after the latter’s exit from the Haryana government, and he lent his support to the BJP’s Hisar candidate in the 2024 Parliamentary elections. In these elections, the Congress candidate Jai Parkash got the lead over his BJP rival Ranjit Singh in six out of nine assembly segments of Hisar. However, Singh polled 11,657 votes more than Parkash, which will make Sihag’s claim to a BJP ticket stronger.
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Boora’s life and achievements
Saweety Boora was born on 10 January, 1993, in a family of farmers in Hisar. She grew up in her maternal village Sarsaud and did her schooling at a government school located between Sarsaud and Bichpadi villages.
From a young age, she showed an inclination towards sports, initially excelling in Kabaddi and becoming a state-level player. However, in 2009, at the behest of her father Mahender Singh Boora, Saweety left Kabaddi and took up boxing. And she hasn’t looked back since.
Boora’s achievements in boxing earned her the Bhim Award from the Haryana government in 2017.
Her boxing career includes a silver medal in the 2014 World Boxing Championship in Jeju City, Korea; a silver in the 2022 Asian Championship in Amman, Jordan; a silver in the 2015 Asian Championship in Wulanchabu, China; and a bronze in Dubai in 2021. A documentary about her journey, titled Chhori Mukkebaaz, was released on the OTT platform Stage, which hosts content in Haryanvi and Rajasthani dialects.
In 2023, she won gold in the Women’s Boxing Championship, defeating Wang Lina of China in the light heavyweight category. Days after her win, then chief minister Khattar gave her a cheque for Rs 40 lakh and an offer for a Group B job in the state government. She is employed as an officer in the Income-Tax Department.
She is married to Deepak Hooda, a Kabaddi player from Chamaria village in Rohtak. Deepak was part of the Indian team that won gold at the 2016 South Asian Games and has participated in all seasons of the Pro Kabaddi League.
Her support for the Congress and shift to BJP
Before Boora joined the BJP, she was vocal in her criticism of the party.
Last year, when residents of her native village Ghirai had honoured her performance at an event, she had asked people to vote for the Congress and “vote Hooda Saab to power” in the next elections, and slammed Khattar government’s sports policy.
She also supported the women wrestlers’ protest against the former Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh over sexual harassment allegations. On 28 April, she had posted a message on X, tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP ministers Kiren Rijiju and Anurag Thakur, along with wrestlers Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia, expressing her distress over the treatment of medal-winning athletes in the country. Earlier, she had joined Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in Haryana in January.
In January this year, though, Boora joined the BJP, along with her husband, in the presence of Khattar, and was welcomed into the party by Nayab Saini, then the party’s state president, and cabinet minister J.P. Dalal.
While joining the BJP, Boora said that she had been influenced by PM Modi to join the ruling party.
“Whether it was the abrogation of Article 370, the construction of the Ram Temple, awarding Bharat Ratna to Chaudhary Charan Singh, or increasing the facilities and budget for sports, I was impressed by the BJP’s policies,” Boora had said then.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)