Will make sure sportspersons get both facilities and respect: Rathore

Olympic silver medallist Rajyavardhan Rathore, who has been appointed as the new Sports Minister, on Monday said that he will focus on providing sportspersons across the country both 'suvidha and sammaan' (facilities and respect) so that they can improve their game and win laurels for the nation.

In a major cabinet reshuffle that took place on Sunday, Rathore replaced Vijay Goel, who has been made the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs.

"We will focus on suvidha and sammaan. (We want to make sure that sportspersons get facilities as well as respect). We want to create an environment where they can improve their game," Rathore told ANI.

He also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for imposing faith in him and said, "The Prime Minister has allocated the ministries keeping in mind the capability and the potential of an individual. Not taking in basis the caste, religion and the gender. I want to thank the Prime Minister for giving me this responsibility."

"I think the youth of this nation also wants to get rid of these restrictions and want to move ahead. They want to get a platform, no matter if they belong to cities or villages," he added.

Rathore, country's first Olympic silver medallist, has three Commonwealth Gold medals, and two World Championship Gold medals as well to his name.

Colonel Rathore stepped into the shooting range in the mid 1990s. After his premature retirement from the Indian Army, Rathore joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2013 and was sworn in as Minister of State when the Modi Government came to power in May, 2014.