By IANS
New Delhi : The Indian cricket team should have been recalled from Australia after the controversy over racist abuse, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad said Saturday, targeting his cabinet colleague, Agriculture Minister and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sharad Pawar.
“If I had been there I would have recalled each and every Indian player from Australia. This is a game in which the player should be able to play freely and not be subjected to abuse and humiliation,” Lalu Prasad said, though he did not name Pawar.
It was Pawar who decided against calling off the Australia tour even as the BCCI took up with the International Cricket Council (ICC) the issue of banning Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh for three Tests for allegedly abusing Australian player Andrew Symonds in the second Test at Sydney.
Lalu Prasad was talking to reporters after a meeting with Home Minister Shivraj Patil to review railway security.
He also criticised Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani’s proposal naming former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for Bharat Ratna.
“These people want Vajpayee to retire from politics. They want to ensure that he no longer remains in the political field. We will not allow him to retire so soon.”
He also replied to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s dig at him after a chapter on him (Lalu Prasad) was removed from school textbooks.
“I have so many admirers who have written any number of books on me. I am not even aware of all of them. But I assure you that when I return to Bihar, I will get a chapter on him (Nitish Kumar) included too. In this chapter the children will be told how he started as a socialist leader of great promise and eventually went and sat in the lap of the BJP.”