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Mar232009
IPL is getting bigger
Lalit Modi may have misread the Election Commission’s moves while planning the second season of the Indian Premier League. Obviously, the thought process behind scheduling the matches in this fashion is to make the most out of the summer vacation and also wrap up the tournament before severe summer sets in. As soon as the Election Commission announced the elections, a clash seemed inevitable. The men behind the IPL must have tried all permutations and combinations of holding the tournament alongside elections. Eventually they had to concede and now it has been made official that they are looking at other venues to host the tournament according to its original schedule. By any yard stick it appeared to be a tough proposition.
The alternative proposals put forward by IPL did not impress the government and thus IPL has been moved out of India and the organizers are exploring other possibilities. Simultaneously the political blame game has started and political parties are trying to make this an election issue and score political mileage, which is really unfortunate. The BJP fears that the inability to host IPL will give a wrong signal about the security establishment of the country. The claim that IPL season 1 was conducted with the Karnataka state elections is not valid as that situation was different from the current, post Mumbai, post Pakistan 3/3 attacks. On the other hand, the ruling central Government could have been sterner in ruling out the possibility of holding the tournament during election season but with some of its coalition partners being the cricket czars, its decisions were also backed by political considerations.
“Due to the Government’s attitude that they can’t provide us with proper security, especially in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, we have moved the IPL out of India,” said Shashank Manohar, President BCCI. IPL is a tournament organized by private players and by all means it is nothing but a purely commercial venture. It is unfair on the part of the organizers to criticize the attitude of the Government, when some of the cricket matches in the past have been given Presidential level security and extending the same during general elections may very well result in diversion of resources.
The TV commercials claim that IPL involves a billion people and commercially its worth a billion, but the elections are no lesser as it is going to decide the fate of a billion people. The sheer scale of the elections is massive. It involves approximately 714 million voters and 8,28,804 polling stations set up across the country and spanning over 5 months the process is monumental and comes at the cost of thousands of crores of tax payers money. More than anything else, it requires coordinated action between a number of central and state level institutions to ensure a smooth election process. Shuttling the security forces for both IPL and the elections is not only a difficult task but also would lead to overburdening of our security forces and is sure to cause excessive administrative burden.
Gone are the days when we claimed politics be kept out of cricket and we have come to a stage where cricket needs to be kept out of politics.
IPL can wait, if need be, but elections cannot. Constitutionally the 15th Lok Sabha is required to be constituted before the 2nd June, 2009 as the term of the 14th Lok Sabha expire on the 1st of June.
The views expressed in this post are those of the writer and are not necessarily endorsed by Mutiny.in
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Eternal Truth
001
5:32 am
Agreed that elections are more important than IPL. But isn’t it a shame that the governments of those respective states are incapable of providing adequate protection to the IPL players? It is not necessarily the issue related only to the current government but it just shows how pathetic we are when it comes to security.
asd
002
9:31 am
One important point you missed, on why it turned a political gimmick, is that in the revised schedule for IPL, BCCI or Lalit Modi dropped all the congress ruled states.
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20090088570
“According to reports, the new IPL schedule has dropped Delhi, Jaipur and Visakhapatnam from the list of venues as the government is not willing to provide security.”
surendran
003
9:39 am
@Eternal Truth : True it is not simply about the ruling government but how the political clan is trying to make it an election issue and scoring a point…. Governments may have expressed inability but my point is what should be the priority now ???? elections or IPL…
@ASD .. the above reply + i have made a point about how the central government could have been more explicit on not allowing this to go ahead in the first place. The very fact that they gave a initial nod and now backing off is, in my opinion, nothing but a political game
Eternal Truth
004
11:47 am
Surendran, as I said before, elections are definitely priority but I find it very frustrating that we are incapable of handling both the things at the same time. Why it is “either or” rather than “both”?
surendran
005
11:26 pm
i m more frustrated by the way politics is being played and sport being used a tool… we definitely are capable of doing these and much more, but the bigger point is the way politics is being played around this
cat
006
5:40 am
be entertained
Naveen Roy
007
6:02 pm
Yeah I think our country must be the only one where a blatently commercial venture as the IPL is even considered for more importance than the elections. Get the hell out of the country you jokers!