By IANS
New Delhi : The sports ministry brought a “haughty” Indian cricket board to its knees recently with a threat not to clear a foreign tour after it tried to ignore a Rajya Sabha inquiry on its affiliation process.
An issue that has been kept under wraps by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the Indian team’s tour of Bangladesh in May was in grave danger of being cancelled by the ministry after the Board tried to ignore a set of 11 pointed questions on the affiliation of states and union territories.
A top BCCI official has now disclosed that the Bangladesh tour was in jeopardy after the Board ignored Rajya Sabha’s two-page letter. A copy of the letter is with IANS.
It was a quiet but unprecedented threat from the sports ministry, which usually does not interfere with BCCI’s functioning. The ministry comes into the picture only when the Board, like all sports federations, seeks clearance for its teams’ foreign tours.
Incensed at the BCCI’s “audacity” in choosing to ignore the Rajya Sabha questions, the ministry also asked the cricket board to furnish the criteria of selecting national teams and, specifically, the minutes of the selection meeting at which the team for the Bangladesh tour was chosen.
Faced with no option, the Board had to reply to all the questions, or the tour would have been cancelled, said the BCCI official.
“When the ministry did not receive the reply to the Rajya Sabha questions within the given four-day period, it got very angry with the BCCI and asked it to also furnish the selection criteria and the minutes of the selection meeting,” he told IANS on condition of anonymity.
“We had no option but to reply to both sets of questions as the tour of Bangladesh was in imminent jeopardy,” he said.
When approached for a comment, top sports ministry officials declined to react. But a ministry functionary, who had seen BCCI’s reply, conveyed the feelings of his bosses succinctly.
“The top officials were extremely annoyed at BCCI’s audacity to not reply to the Rajya Sabha queries,” he said.
Even later, “the ministry officials were not satisfied at all with the replies as the haughty BCCI did not give enough details,” the functionary added.
Interestingly, most of the questions raised by Rajya Sabha related to affiliations of states and union territories to the BCCI.
The recent amendments effected in the BCCI constitution – especially the creation of a third rung of ‘affiliate members’ at a special general body meeting in Mumbai – is clearly a consequence of these Rajya Sabha questions, said the BCCI official.
The other existing categories are ‘full members’ and ‘associate members’.
“It is clear that it was done following increasing pressure from Puducherry and other Union Territories for admission as associate members. With the recent amendments, the BCCI has killed two birds with one stone,” said the official.
The four most significant Rajya Sabha questions were:
* Does the BCCI categorise the states in India as ‘playing states’ and ‘non-plying states’? If so, the basis on which such categorisation has been done.
* The procedure followed by the BCCI for giving affiliation to the central controlling body of any state within the territory of India. Also, the manner in which this has been disseminated to all concerned.
* Have the central controlling bodies of cricket from the states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Chandigarh, Puducherry, Lakshadweep and Andaman & Nicobar Islands approached BCCI for affiliation?
* What policy does the BCCI follow with regard to the recognised cricketing body in a state when the state concerned is divided into two or more states such as in the case of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, which were bifurcated leading to creation of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand, respectively?
“Significantly, they are not the typical Parliament questions, which suggests that the information might have been sought at the instigation of the rival camp of the current BCCI dispensation headed by Sharad Pawar,” the BCCI official charged.
He cited Bihar, which was derecognised after the formation of Jharkhand, as an example. The Lalu Prasad-headed Bihar Cricket Association was among the five associations seeking affiliation in the state’s name.
The Rajya Sabha queries were discussed at a BCCI working committee meeting, but a top official reportedly insisted that the Board should not reply.
The BCCI letter does not find a mention in the minutes of that meeting.