“Though there was a call for awarding the Bharat Ratna to Sachin Tendulkar, but the ministry feels that he is still there and can wait for the honour, whereas the hockey maestro has been kept waiting for too long”, he said.
The recommendation, sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will be studied further before it goes for approval of President Pranab Mukherjee, for the hockey wizard to get the award posthumously.
Dhyan Chand won three gold medals at the Olympics -- 1928 in Amsterdam, 1932 in Los Angeles and 1936 in Berlin. He passed away in 1979. The government in 2011 had ignored the plea of 82 Members of Parliament, who recommended Dhyan Chand's name for Bharat Ratna but in January 2012, the Ministry itself forwarded his name along with Olympic gold medallist shooter Abhinav Bindra and mountaineer Tenzing Norgay for the award.
A six-member delegation, led by Dhyan Chand's son Ashok Kumar, met Sports Minister Jitendra Singh on July 12. The delegations also included former India cricket captain Bishan Singh Bedi and Dhyan Chand's grandson Gaurav Singh.
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