Vijayawada: Archery coach Cherukuri Satyanarayana, who sat on a hunger strike was arrested by the Police and shifted to the Government Hospital, where he has been refusing to take any treatment and is continuing the hunger strike.
Mr Satyanarayana started his hunger strike at his son and former archer Lenin’s grave in Vijayawada, demanding archer Jyothi Surekha apologise for her “unwanted and unnecessary comments”. Surekha has ruled that out.
As per records, Satyanarayana has never coached Surekha. In his own words, Satyanarayana was the manager and Rama Rao the coach when Surekha won the gold medal at the 2013 Junior Archery World Championship held in Wuxi, China.
Surekha and her father Surendra have denied Satyanraayana’s allegations. “As secretary of the Archery Association Cherukuri Satyanarayana has taken of my daughter till 2012. The coach was J. Rama Rao, who was appointed by Satyanarayana himself. After 2012, my daughter went to USA and took coaching there,” Surendra told this newspaper.
Controversy erupted when the Andhra Pradesh government issued an order stating that Rs 15 lakh of the Rs 1 crore prize money announced to Surekha was to be given to Satyanarayana as her coach.
Objecting to this, Surekha and her father approached the Minister for Sports Kollu Ravindra over the issue. Later, they addressed a press conference and threatened to go for hunger strike unless the government gave all the cash from the award to Surekha.
Later, the government issued a separate GO (for Rs 76.53 lakh as Surekha was already given Rs 23.47 lakh) and settled the issue.
Another GO was issued alloting Rs 15 lakh prize money to Satyanarayana as coach.
However, Satyanarayana decided to go on hunger strike saying Surekha’s allegations had hurt him.
