The Lok Sabha debate on the alleged corruption and delays in the construction of venues for the Commonwealth Games saw some unusual trends that seem to have escaped the media's attention
The Lok Sabha debate on the alleged corruption and delays in the construction of venues for the Commonwealth Games saw some unusual trends that seem to have escaped the media's attention.
First, no one has attacked Organising Committee president Suresh Kalmadi inside the House, though most opposition leaders oblige the byte-hungry TV correspondents with juicy lines, exactly the way they are told to parrot.
Second, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the ruling Congress fielded young guns to initiate the debate. Then, curiously, none of the Delhi MPs spoke on the subject. Kalmadi, himself a Lok Sabha MP, was seen explaining to Lal Krishan Advani his case with a sheaf of documents to buttress his arguments.
Kalmadi's bete noire Mani Shankar Aiyar wanted Sports Minister Manohar Singh Gill to head a Special Committee to oversee the working of the Organising Committee (OC) like Buta Singh did during the 1982 Asian Games.
Gill rejected the idea stating that it is too late in the day to change horses midstream, not because the publicity-hungry former chief election commissioner would not like to preside over the Games or honestly believes that one more committees is not the answer.
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He knew the real answer and said so in his reply to the debateu00a0-- that the OC derives its power from the Indian Olympic Association and the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), not from the government. Thus it is not all that easy to oust Kalmadi who is the points man for CGF in organising the Games.
All this doesn't mean the charges are baseless. The expenditure on some counts is preposterous, but that is expected when things are delayed deliberately so that you can have your hand in the till in the name of adhocism.
If the BJP's criticism of Kalmadi and the OC is muffled, it only shows how the sports bodies function in this country and how even the hardcore politicians close their ranks irrespective of their party affiliations when it comes to sport.
