Enough has been said in press and media about the Commonwealth Games to be held in Delhi between 3rd to 14th October 2010. About 8000 athletes from 72 nations will take part in 17 different sports.
A sports event is suppose to bind the country together, unite the nation behind its sporting heroes in their quest to achieve excellence in their events. Hosting a world event means glory for the host nation, national pride in hosting the games, apart from the fact that several hundred thousands of people visiting the country to enjoy the event. Boost for Tourism, boost for infrastructure and general boost to sports and sporting culture of the nation.
However what we are seeing in Delhi is contrary to all of the above. The facilities are incomplete, the games village where athletes would stay half made, the roads and pavements in Delhi have been dug up badly for the reconstruction. There are massive traffic jams everyday. This is a complete case of utter failure of the state government, central government, various development agencies of Delhi along with organization committee of the Commonwealth Games.
On top of this the corruption scandals are hitting the headlines everyday. Half of the organization committee have been made to resign, questions have been asked, documents have been leaked and all kinds of allegations are made on the man mostly responsible for all of the chaos and corruption, Mr. Suresh Kalmadi, who as a head of Indian Olympic Association was the head of the Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee.
Some say the corruption scandals are worth thousands of crores, some say the figure is as high as 1 Lakh crore. The Congress party has gone in hiding on the issue and when the questions were raised in the Parliament, the Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari have come with such ridiculous answers that even a layman would know that the government is hiding more than just Suresh Kalmadi. Mr. Kalmadi however refuses to resign and says that everything is hunky-dory and the games would be held perfectly well. He also adds that he would resign if his bosses, the prime minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, tells him to resign. There are people who say that these games should not have been held only in India, as it is fruitless spending so much money for a 12 day event when the same amount of money could have been better utilized in a poor country like ours.
Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said in the parliament that all charges are baseless, Kalmadi is innocent, the total costs of the games are just Rs. 2,800 Crore and amount of corruption is barely few crores which is like 0.07% of the costs. By saying this he has firstly admitted that corruption exists in hosting the game, secondly all reports suggests and we can see with our eyes that games have cost lot more than the money mentioned by Mr. Tewari, thirdly this exposes the double standards of the Congress Party, who refutes all charges of corruption in CWG games and asks media not to ‘tarnish images of the games and Mr. Kalmadi without any proof”. The media has more than enough proof of the wrong deeds of the organization committee, members of the committee have been made to resign on basis of that.
Mr. Manish ‘loudmouth’ Tewari was effectively found wanting for words when defending Mr. Kalmadi on the newschannels as even he knows that Mr. Kalmadi, his organizing committee, Delhi state government and Central UPA government have FAILED miserably and have dirtied their hands in organizing Commonwealth Games. Manish Tewari who is a Member of Parliament from Ludhiana, which is a bastion of Sports Goods Manufacturing in India, should have known a little more about sports than argue pointlessly with Kirti Azaad, a BJP MP, on matters of sports, hosting of games, advantage of being a host the athletes and basic facilities what an athlete needs in an event like this.
The next day Sports Minister M S Gill crossed all limits when he refused to answer any allegations in the Parliament. When he was asked questions about the cost of stadiums being made, he answered ‘Go File an RTI, if you need the information’, thus by suggesting that he would only answer if made to answer through RTI ( Right to Information Act) and would not be answerable to even the Parliament of the country !!!
Here’s a good article on what needs to be done before the Games begin in about 50 days.
In conclusion, the games are still 50 days away. Hopefully the government would wake up now and appoint someone with better credentials in organizing and supervising the games and host the games successfully, else it would be a real matter of shame in front of the whole world.
Yeh Mera India 