NEW DELHI: Sporting gear and apparels used by the players and athletes, who participated in the Commonwealth Games 2022, Deaflympics 2022 and Thomas Cup Championship 2022, have emerged as most sought after articles among 1,200 mementoes, put up at online auction that were presented to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The auction was launched on Modi’s birthday on September 17.
The T-shirt autographed by men and women teams of Deaflympics 2022, Table Tennis racket signed by Commonwealth Games 2022 Gold medalist Bhavina Patel, Badminton racket bearing signature of Thomas Cup Championship 2022 Gold medallist K Srikanth and Badminton Bag having autographs of the winners of the Thomas Cup Championship 2022 are on the top of the list with maximum bids.
A wooden model of Kashi Vishwanath temple complex, presented by Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath at the inauguration of the Kashi Vishwanath Dham in December, garnered highest numbers of bids. Till 1 pm on Sunday, 282 bidders expressed their interest to grab the temple replica. The highest quoted price was Rs 49.61 lakh though the base price is Rs 16,200. The auction was scheduled to end on Sunday however the deadline has been extended to October 12.
For the T-shirt autographed by the members of 65 times, who represented India at Deaflympics in Brazil, 222 persons quoted bids. The highest bid was of Rs 47.69 lakh against the base price of Rs 5 lakh. With 216 bids, the Table Tennis racket bearing autograph of Patel is the third most demanded article. The base price has been kept at `5 lakh but the maximum price quoted for the racket was Rs 41.19 lakh.
The badminton racket with the signature of Srikanth and badminton duffle bag autographed by the winners of the Thomas Cup Championship 2022 received 212 and 208 bids respectively. The highest price for Srikanth’s racket was Rs 48.20 lakh (base price is Rs 5 lakh) and for the bag, highest quoted value was Rs 49.61 lakh while the base price for this article is also Rs 5 lakh.
The ministry had put in a multi-layered mechanism in place to prevent ‘non-serious’ or ‘bogus’ bidders from participating and quoting exceptionally high prices for the souvenirs. This year Aadhaar 12-digit unique identity number has been made mandatory to bid for any article. Repeated bidding for an article by the same participant has also been prohibited. The ministry has also fixed a ceiling price for each object up for sale.
Some of the gifts are on display at the National Gallery of Modern Art. Many noted personalities, artists, singers like Kangana Ranaut Mohit Chauhan have visited the gallery to see the displayed items.