Indian Olympic Association chief Suresh Kalmadi lashes out at the BCCI for not sending its teams to the Asian Games later this year.
As the UPA government at the Centre celebrated the first anniversary of its second term in office, Congress MP from Pune Suresh Kalmadi took pot-shots at NCP president Sharad Pawar, without naming him, and the Board of Control for Cricket in India for not sending a team to the Asian Games.
The sixteenth edition of the Asian Games are to be held in Guangzhou, China, later this year and will be the first to feature cricket among its various disciplines, albeit in the Twenty20 format.
Kalmadi was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the inauguration of the Asian Grand Prix meet at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports complex at Balewadi in Pune on Tuesday.
Kalmadi said, “The BCCI has conveyed its decision of not sending Team India for the Asian Games. This was expected of the BCCI. Yeh to hona hi tha.
“Cricket in India is commercialised and since there is no big prize money involved, I am not surprised at all at the BCCI’s decision,” Kalmadi said.
Referring to the last Commonwealth Games held in Malaysia, Kalmadi said, “The BCCI had sent a B-team to Malaysia. It is better not to send a team, rather than to send a B-team.”
Kalmadi, who is the president of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), shares a bitter relationship with Pawar, especially after the 2007 Pune Municipal Corporation polls.
During these elections, Pawar had appealed to the citizens of Pune to oust the Kalmadi-led Congress from the corporation. The NCP had gone to the extent of joining hands with the Shiv Sena to keep Kalmadi and the Congress at bay in the PMC.
Of course, Kalmadi and Pawar dismantled the so-called Pune pattern in the run-up to the assembly elections in 2009, after which the Congress and the NCP joined hands to rule the PMC.
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