Maintenance, not Tripura roads reason for returning BMW, says Dipa Karmakar's father

Dipa Karmakar's father on Wednesday rubbished the media reports that the trailblazing gymnast was returning the BMW handed over by Sachin Tendulkar due to bad roads in Tripura.

Dipa's father Dulal Karmakar told ANI that due to absence of any BMW servicing centre in Tripura, he along with Dipa and her coach Bishweshwar Nandi, had jointly requested president of Hyderabad Badminton Association (BAH), V Chamundeswaranath if they could give her the price of the BMW as cash and with which she would buy a car that has its showroom and servicing centre in her home town.

"No question arises of returning back the gifted BMW in Hyderabad. The main problem is that BMW does not have a showroom here, if the car has any problem we have to fly a mechanic from Kolkata and it will be very expensive. So, I along with my daughter and her coach, had decided and ask them that instead of a car if they could give the price of it as cash so that we can buy a car which is available here," said Dulal.

He added, "There are roads and in the northeast the roads are not in that poor condition that the car (BMW) will not be able to move here. Though the roads are not as wide as that of Kolkata or Delhi, here we have jig-jag roads but not of much bad condition."

Strongly refuting reports quoting Karmakar that Dipa wants to return the BMW car, her father said that they are only concerned about the maintenance problems and so want that car, within the same budget, which has it service centre in Agartala.

In August for her achievement at the Rio Olympics, Dipa, along with India's two other medalists badminton star P.V. Sindhu and wrestler Sakshi Malik and Sindhu's coach Pullela Gopichand, each received a BMW car gifted by the president of the BAH.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Dipa narrowly missed out on a bronze medal in the women's vault event.