With the Indian Olympic Association calling off its bid for the 2019 Asian Games after failing to get an emergency appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India have lost out on a chance to wash the stains of corruption scandals while hosting the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
"This is a bit unfortunate that we're going to miss this golden opportunity of hosting such a big sporting event. We only started pushing for the Games after new sports minister Sarbananda Sonowal showed government's intentions to do so," said Rajeev Mehta, the secretary general of the IOA, on Monday.
When asked if there's still a chance to revive the bid, Mehta didn't look too enthusiastic about it. "We can't keep wasting our time for something which is not in our hand. To host any big game, like Asian Games, it is basically the government's will and assurance that works and not that of us. We tried our best to have an audience with our prime minister but didn't get time from his office."
The deadline set by Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) ended on Sunday and thus only Jakarta, Indonesia, is likely to get the nod as the city seems to be the only serious bidder till date.
To its credit, IOA had managed to address all the issues raised by sports ministry last week. "It was never that easy from Day One," IOA president R Ramachandran told dna on Monday.
"To fulfil every demand of OCA was not an easy task but IOA did give its best shot. There were rumours that I had differences with secretary general over hosting of Games. It is not at all true. We're always in touch with each other while pushing for the Games," clarified Ramachandran.
dna had reported that OCA has been in a fix over the Games as Jakarta, too, had some constraints regarding budget. It was then that a senior OCA member asked IOA to push hard for the Games. Last week, Mehta called on the sports secretary Ajit Kumar Sharan who in return asked him to furnish detailed budgetary outlays.
"Whatever Ministry asked us to furnish, we submitted all the details," Mehta said. The ministry basically wanted to know an estimate for the construction of the Games Village and where and how much land was needed to build it, besides other projects that needed to be undertaken in the run-up to the Games.
Hanoi had pulled out on April 17 and that's when news surfaced over the differences between Ramachandran and Mehta over bidding for the Games. It was Mehta who reached out of every IOA member through email, seeking their views on the matter.
Sports Ministry has kept a strange silence on this entire issue as Sonowal is now busy with the Budget Session of the Parliament.
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