The Indian Premier League governing council met on Sunday but failed to take the only decision that did not require much deliberation. For, the suspension of the two teams whose owners were indicted by Justice R M Lodha Committee ought to have received automatic endorsement from the IPL governing council. But it did not. Given that Chennai Super Kings has a very strong promoter in the former BCCI czar, N. Srinivasan, the decision to postpone a decision on its eventual fate should not have come as a surprise. The other team, Rajasthan Royals, too is well-connected with the founding IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi reportedly having a close connection with some of its owners. In any case, the failure of the IPL bosses to make a clear-cut decision on the fate of the two errant teams made headline news. What was really strange was that a couple of members actually argued against the suspension of the two teams. This was sheer brazenness. If politicians form committees to skirt around the embarrassing findings of inquiry panels, the IPL governing council too bought time, setting up a committee of its own to study the report of the Lodha panel. Quite clearly, the committee would be asked to devise ways to get round the findings of the Lodha panel. In fact, prominent apparatchiks of the IPL and its mother-body, the BCCI, hinted that the two teams could be retained more or less intact but under different names. This was sought to be done, purportedly, in order to safeguard the interests of the players. However, if the intention of the Lodha panel was to punish only the two owners, the question may be asked, why would it recommend the suspension of the two franchises. Instead, it would have asked for the ejection of Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra from these franchises and ordered them to dissociate themselves fully from any cricketing activity in any manner forever. But by recommending that both these teams be suspended, the inquiry panel clearly intended to penalize the players as well, who, by implication, might have wittingly or unwittingly helped Meiyappan and Kundra in their gambling operations. Otherwise, the call for suspension of the two franchises would appear to be baseless and wholly unwarranted. Therefore, the proposal to more or less retain the two teams, albeit under new names, in some way thwarts the Inquiry Committee Report. The IPL governing council should not drag its feet. It has already let down millions of cricket fans by tainting the mass sport with greed and mischief. Protecting the members of the two teams, whose inside information most likely facilitated the gambling operations of Meiyappan and Kundra, would not make any sense. Admittedly, not every player in the two franchises might have been a party to the underhand activities of the team owners but without the latter accessing inside information of individual matches, there would have been no occasion for the inquiry panel to call for life-long ban against them. We think that the members of the IPL governing council have failed to gauge the depth of anger and loathing their irresponsible stewardship of the game has generated in the minds of cricket lovers. The Lodha panel recommendations must be accepted in toto – and without any further dilly-dallying.
Iftar and opportunism
The question is not why Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not present at the Iftar party held last week at Rashtrapati Bhavan. No, the question ought to be why Pranab Mukherjee deemed it right and proper to host such a party. As the head of the secular Republic, it is not for President Mukherjee to host a party to mark a particular religious event at taxpayers’ expense. He is free to host one in his private capacity whether it is for Diwali or Durgapuja, or Christmas or Gurupurab. A wrong ritual began by a former prime minister with an eye on the votes of the most numerous minority community has obviously spread like a contagion in our body politic. Congress President Sonia Gandhi held her own Iftar party the other day at a five-star hotel in the capital. It made news for her failure to attract major non-BJP leaders rather than for the religiosity associated with the occasion of feasting with the faithful who after a day-long of Ramadan fast, gorge on various savories and other special dishes and thus ready themselves for the next day’s fast. Meanwhile, if the RSS mouthpiece, ‘Organiser’, found the Iftar parties opportunistic, how does it explain the one held by the RSS’s Muslim Rashtriya Manch, the other day, at which a couple of senior functionaries of the organization were prominently present?
