President Pranab Mukherjee honors Abhijeet Gupta (Chess) with Arjuna Award at Rashtrapati Bhavan on August 31, 2013 (IANS photo) NEW DELHI: Arjuna Awardee (GM) Abhijeet Gupta, who became the first Indian to win five Commonwealth Chess titles, has sparked a massive conversation over the treatment of athletes in India after he took to X (formerly Twitter) to reveal that his prize money for winning the January 2026 Odisha GM Open remains unpaid.In an exclusive interview with TimesofIndia.com on Saturday, the CEO expressed his frustration over the lack of accountability on the part of the tournament organizers as well as the All India Chess Federation (AICF).
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Vincent Keymer Exclusive: Becoming Germany’s No. 1, Intimidating Magnus Carlsen and moreThe tournament, which featured multiple grandmasters, ended on 24 January 2026. The ‘A’ category had a total prize pool of Rs 25 crore, with the winner set at Rs 5.5 crore. Gupta was initially told that his winnings would be transferred within a few weeks.“The organizer said to me at the time: ‘Your winnings will be transferred in a few weeks, so please don’t bother… we are very busy.’ I wasn’t too worried about it because it’s a common practice in India that they don’t give cash prizes,” said Gupta, who clinched the title with a score of 8/10.However, weeks turned into months. After the monitoring in March, the communication on the part of the organizers stopped. “After a few months, they stopped responding completely,” he added.Gupta, who received the prestigious Arjuna award back in 2013, subsequently approached the AICF saying that the tournament is officially affiliated to the national body.“I felt AICF is also responsible… if it is under AICF, there must be some accountability,” Gupta added.Despite sending several emails to the president and secretary of the federation since March, the GM has received no response. For the 36-year-old Gupta, the matter transcends his personal finances as he is deeply concerned about the precedent it will set for the next generation of Indian chess prodigies.“I am now at that stage in my career where money doesn’t matter much. But imagine if some 10-year-old boy wins his first award and doesn’t get it, what kind of precedent do we set? If that can happen to someone who is honored with an Arjuna award, one can only imagine the struggles that grassroots players face,” he said.Gupta’s post on X called on the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports to step in and demand transparency and protection of the “dignity and confidence of every chess player in India”.Meanwhile, after the social media outburst, AICF President Nitin Narang reached out to GM Gupta who wrote on X: “All India Chess Federation president @narangnitin ji called me and assured me that necessary action has been initiated.”
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