Dipa Karmakar not to return BMW, says getting any gift from Sachin Tendulkar is big

New Delhi: A day after sparking intense media debate on the virtues of giving a gift which can't be put to good use, Dipa Karmakar on Thursday said that she can't even think of returning the BMW car which was gifted to her.

The trailblazing gymnast told ANI, "See it is not at all like this, I cannot even do that because getting a gift from Sachin [Tendulkar] Sir's hand itself is a very big thing. I got the key from him. In fact, I cannot even think of refusing or returning it back."

The 23-year-old girl from Agartala also clarified that there should not have been any issue on this.

"See here in Agartala, we don't have a showroom or service centre of BMW and, therefore, I asked them (members of Badminton Association of Hyderabad) for any other vehicle which is locally available and they also gave their consent for that. Other than this there is no other issue," she added.

The confusion started after the gymnast shared a Tweet post yesterday saying, "Very thankful to Sachin sir for gifting me BMW but cannot maintain in Tripura, so giving back. Thank you for agreeing to give funds for it."

Dipa became a national sensation after producing impressive performance at the 2016 Rio Olympics, where she missed the bronze medal by mere 0.150 points to Swiss Giulia Steingruber.

She, along with two Indian medallist — shuttler PV Sindhu and wrestler Sakshi Malik – and Sindhu's coach Pullela Gopichand were gifted BMW cars, with the keys presented by Tendulkar.

The rewards were sponsored by the Badminton Association of Hyderabad.

Meanwhile, a report in TOI claimed that Dipa has not yet received the car.