New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday announced Kavita Dalal, a former World Wrestling Entertainment player, as its candidate against the Congress’s star wrestler Vinesh Phogat, from the Julana Assembly seat in Haryana.
The BJP earlier announced Captain Yogesh Bairagi, a former commercial pilot, as its nominee from Julana.
The first Indian woman to sign on with the WWE, having achieved the same in 2017, Kavita will try to attract Jat votes like Phogat, the first Indian woman wrestler to make it to the Olympic finals.
Kavita, 37, said she respects Phogat for making a name for the country in the world. “Now, she is a political candidate in the Assembly polls. My fight will not be against Vinesh but against the difficulties people are facing in the Julana constituency,” she told The Indian Express (TIE).
The fourth among five siblings born to a farming family, belonging to Malvi village of Julana constituency, Kavita took up weightlifting at a very young age, inspired by her uncle Balwant Dalal. By 2008, she was winning medals in the 75-kg category, though her attempts to qualify for the Olympics failed.
In 2009, Kavita got married and had a child. She wanted to quit sports after that, but her husband Gaurav Tomar, a volleyball player from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh, who is currently serving in the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), encouraged her to continue. By 2012, Kavita was training at the Jalandhar Academy of former WWE star Dalip Singh Rana, popularly known as The Great Khali, TIE reported.
In 2016, she was the winner of weightlifting gold in the 75-kg category at the South Asian Games. The next year, Kavita appeared for trials at Khali’s academy before competing in the WWE tryouts in Dubai in April 2017. Some months later, she competed in the Mae Young Classic in Orlando, USA. Kavita got the WWE contract the same year and later competed in WrestleMania and WWE Evolution.
In 2022, Kavita joined the AAP and is currently the head of its state sports wing.
