Winning has become habit for this IAS officer, who won the open doubles national gold medal in All India Central Services Tennis Championship.
Naveen Mahajan, 53, partnered with a veteran tennis player Jagdish Tanwar to win emerge triumphant in the 45 plus category of the prestigious event.
Mahajan pipped sports quota officers
As an amateur tennis player, the achievement of Mahajan is significant as he had to battle it out with players employed under sports quota. But with his never-say-die spirit, Mahajan has been able to win gold medal in the is tightly contested tournament for the third time in a row with 100% success rate.
Mahajan has over 35 winner trophies in his kitty at every level including inter club, state and national level.
Sport comes naturally to Mahajan
Mahajan, a 1997 batch IAS officer who is currently serving as chief electoral officer (CEO) of Rajasthan is regular in his tennis regime. Even at age of 53, he has not dropped his shoulder. Instead he works harder to win over his aging body and sharpen his reflexes.
An accomplished hockey player but a self taught tennis player, Mahajan has been hitting the tennis court every day before the break of dawn for last 20 years sharpening his skills.
“For those who are natural sportsman, there is not much difference between dribbling with hockey stick and striking ace with tennis racket,” said Mahajan, who has represented his native place Jalandhar in hockey.
Mahajan started CS Challenger Cup
As Collector Jaipur, Mahajan had started Chief Secretary Challenger cup in 2011. It started with 8 teams and last year, there were 18-20 teams.
Interestingly in all the ten editions so far, Mahajan has led IAS team to top the table.
Sports is as natural as administration to IAS Naveen Mahajan, who has brought laurels for Rajasthan many a times at national tennis tourneys for civil servants.
Naveen Mahajan's agility and speed has little impact of age and at 53, he still has the ability to turn the table on opponents.
Sport still gives same kick to Naveen Mahajan
Mahajan finds hardly any difference when he used to play hockey for his college team and now playing tennis for IAS team. Sports make a person competitive and alert. It inculcates sportsman spirit which helps in arriving at unbiased decisions. “For sportsman, giving this best is more important than the results. The same applies in bureaucracy. One should give it the best, result follows,” said the winning captain Naveen Mahajan.
Vivek Shukla is a management graduate who has worked in corporate worked for 20 years and is now pursuing his passion — news.
