Many celebrities skip wrestler Sakshi Malik’s wedding

The nation cheered and joined in Sakshi Malik’s celebrations when she ended the country’s dry spell at last year’s Rio Olympics by winning a bronze medal in wrestling.

However, on another big day for Sakshi on Sunday, not many showed up at her wedding.

Sakshi Malik married her wrestler boyfriend Satyawart Kadian in Rohtak’s Nandal Bhawan. The celebrity guest list for the wedding included prime minister Narendra Modi, sports minister Vijay Goel, railway minister Suresh Prabhu as well as sports personalities Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Deepa Karmakar, Deepa Malik and Bollywood celebrities such as Randeep Hooda.

However, only a handful of the high-profile guests invited showed up at the wedding to bless the couple. They were former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, double Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar and Jat leader Yashpal Malik. Haryana agriculture minister OP Dhankar and opposition party INLD’s leader Abhay Chautala called on her residence earlier in the day to congratulate her.

Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and state sports minister Anil Vij, who had announced a slew of incentives for Sakshi when she had returned home from Rio, skipped the event, as possible fallout of a recent spat after the wrestler posted a series of tweets accusing the state government of not fulfilling their announcements on incentives. The government had rejected her claims saying a R2.5 crore cheque was presented to her the day she landed in India from Brazil.

Many sports stars congratulated the grappler on Twitter, apologising for not attending the wedding due to their busy schedule. “Couldn’t make it because of IPL camp. Wish you a life full of joy and no kushti at home,” tweeted Sehwag.

Sakshi’s mother Sudesh Malik had earlier said they had invited everyone, but had no confirmation who all would turn up on Sakshi’s big day.