Badminton ace Saina Nehwal on Saturday expressed her disappointment after her name did not feature in the list for the prestigious Padma Bhushan Award for this year.
"I am just hurt by the news that my name was not sent to the panel who decides the awards but ofcourse I will be respecting whatever they decide, its finally upto them to choose just that I felt a little bad about this," Saina told mediapersons here.
"And being a player when you dream of getting such big awards when you play for your country, and you want to win every-time and stand on the podium. It's something like that, it's a great national honour and for every player it only motivates it only helps you to do better and better," she said.
She further expressed her sadness about the government decision of rejecting her case to get the prestigious award.
"It's not about the nomination. I got to know by the paper that my name was not recommended to the Home Ministry. In fact the Badminton Association of India felt that I was deserving this year and they applied to the Sports Ministry. But, I got the news from Ministry sources that they recommended Sushil Sir's name, of course Sushil Kumar is a very good friend and he is obviously a great player," she said.
Saina however added that she would have felt proud had the government conferred the award to both two-time Olympic medallist wrestler Sushil Kumar and herself.
"I would have felt proud if both of us get the awards ofcourse, because we both are deserving, we both won the Olympic medal at the same time as well," she added.
