It is a sad reality today that if one scratches the surface in any enterprise in which there is big money involved, there is corruption lurking in it or in the vicinity. With cricket being a virtual obsession in this country, there indeed are huge stakes involved in its management and consequently widespread suspicion for long that the Board of Control for Cricket in India reeks of corruption.
Yet, there have been no blockbuster revelations of the bigwigs being caught with their hands in the till. It is a tribute to the ingenuity with which the culprits cover their flanks. Yes, fingers were pointed at Lalit Modi when he was the commissioner of the Indian Premier League but he chose to flee to London before the heat could build up.
Former BCCI President and current Chief of ICC, N. Srinivasan, is under a cloud because his son-in-law Gurunath Meyiappan has been found to have indulged in illegal betting but the incorrigible cricket administrator is seemingly unfazed even as he wards off his detractors and sits tight on the coveted ICC chief’s seat.
The wily Lalit Modi who founded the cash-rich IPL extravaganza is no ordinary man—he has the potential to singe and ruin the reputations of many cricketing giants and no one knows this better than the cricket administrators who hold the keys to the BCCI vaults. The Congress which was in power at the Centre during the Lalit Modi era in IPL, made some bold noises in the early months of his self-imposed exile but finally chose discretion as the better part of valour. It did not put the Enforcement Directorate on his trail and chose not to issue warrants of arrest. Now it points an accusing finger at the Modi government.
The BJP, which had a cozy relationship with Lalit too, did not pursue the ED path. That some of its leaders—principally External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vijayaraje Scindia had family ties with him can hardly be construed as a crime much as the Congress would like to do. He is no proclaimed offender and there is no arrest warrant for him.
The much ado over Lalit Modi could well backfire on the Congress if he decides to pull out some skeletons from his cupboard. In any event, morality and ethics do not sound credible from a party that has had a poor record of political morality and propriety. In any case, there has been a Congress overkill on Lalit Modi Connections issue and any boycott of the parliamentary proceedings by the Congress on this issue will only give the BJP a handle to beat them with and will expose the negative approach of the Congress.
The judiciary has reacted to the cricket betting scandal with alacrity for a change. That the Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja match-fixing cases are still hanging fire in courts years after the allegations surfaced, however, does little credit to the slow judicial process.
However, to the judiciary’s credit, the recent-day Mudgal Committee’s findings on the misdemeanours of Gurunath Meyiappan and of Raj Kundra has been followed up fairly quickly with the Lodha Committee fixing responsibility of these two key actors for illegal betting in cricket. Since Gurunath Meyappan was associated with Chennai Super Kings and Kundra with Rajasthan Royals, the two IPL teams have been barred from participation in IPL tournaments for two years.
But what of the BCCI? It could well have drawn benefit from the verdict of two Supreme Court panels but it chose procrastination by setting up a group that would decide what the future of the two debarred franchises and their players would be. The Supreme Court panels could have used this opportunity to address corruption at large in the BCCI to restore its credibility but they chose to focus all of their attention on one franchisee and the other a functionary of the franchisee. Considering that Meyiappan drew all his strength and authority from Srinivasan who had had a controversial career, there could have been deeper deliberation on his role.
Typically, the BCCI itself will deal with the narrow range of issues at hand and pretend that all’s well with it which is not true. Current IPL chief Rajiv Shukla has already patted himself on the back, using superlatives to describe the conduct of IPL-8 and bragging with nonchalance that IPL’s 2016 edition would be better than all the earlier ones.
There is not a word of remorse over the hammering that IPL has taken psychologically in the minds of cricket-lovers in the wake of the new controversies that have dogged it.
Since powerful politicians like Sharad Pawar, Arun Jaitley, Rajiv Shukla, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Omar Abdullah, among others, are associated with the BCCI, the question of ridding the cricket body of politics and politicians will not be taken up in the foreseeable future. But there is no denying that cricket attracts many of these busybodies not just because of the clout that association with the BCCI affords but also because it is a cash cow with considerable money under its command without the scrutiny of governmental watchdogs like the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India (CAG).
There is a widespread feeling among well-intentioned sports experts and enthusiasts that politics is playing havoc with Indian sports in general. Hockey, for instance, has been a victim of political skullduggery for long like cricket. But the culture, of politicians doubling up as sports administrators, has taken such deep roots that this evil continues to pull down Indian sports.
Some reforms are sorely needed in the administration of cricket. The foremost of these is that the BCCI must be brought under the financial scrutiny of the CAG. The BCCI has always resisted this but the government must force it down its throat. This is an absolute must. There is a case for excluding fulltime politicians from holding positions in the BCCI. The sooner it is done the better it would be for the game.
Stricter accountability and audits would contribute to streamlining things considerably.
