The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced, formally, its decision to hold the second edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) outside India this year. This follows the reservations first aired by the Union home minister P. Chidambaram, and later echoed by various States at various times, that the “State” could not provide for the IPL at a time when the general elections were on.
The IPL came up with alternative dates which were reviewed by the home minister, and then further reviewed, and then further re-reviewed. Yet, different governments came up with riders and caveats that were clearly unacceptable to the IPL beyond a point, which was in no position to push the dates forward since there was no other window open in the ICC calender. IPL was also not willing to truncate the tournament.
Considering that “cricket is religion”, considering that Season 1 was a TV “success”, considering all the money, jobs, glitz and glamour associated with IPL, will an “Indian” Premier League being held outside India still have the same impact if it is held in England or South Africa? And, considering that most of the opposition has come from Congress-ruled countries States, can the BCCI decision have an impact on the elections?
Also read: Why should “State” provide security for IPL?
churumuri 
LOL… When you said cricket is a religion.. For a second I imagined a BJP like party who wouldn’t allow building of any football stadium in the country.. only cricket.. cricket rules =P
PS: Oh yes people will be beaten up if they wear football jerseys.. it’s not part of the culture. They should “vonly wear Bengaluru Royal Challengers jersey”
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LOL… When you said cricket is a religion.. For a second I imagined a BJP like party who wouldn’t allow building of any football stadium in the country.. only cricket.. cricket rules =P
PS: Oh yes people will be beaten up if they wear football jerseys.. it’s not part of the culture. They should “vonly wear Bengaluru Royal Challengers jersey”
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Countries ? Tongue in cheek or an honest mistake ?
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I think it’s political fear of loosing the focus of Election during the IPL season which is the case than anything else here. The cricket craziness of the country may drive General Election a mere side show. May be Modi’s closeness to Vijayaraje Sidhya is just a another reason.
This just political Tamasha than anything else.
Shame on Politicians !
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It is an utter shame that the center and states are together in telling their citizens that they can’t protect them in carrying out their regular life!
They might as well tell the world we don’t control our destiny, so don’t tour us, don’t come to India as it is unsafe!
This is admission of loss, even without fighting. An event like IPL needs security that is far less than securing our borders. Is chidambaram is going to say that we can’t secure our borders too while our elections is on??!!
Stupid politicians.
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It is heartening that the netizens who have participated in the poll are indeed sensible people. They have got the priorities correctly. Cricket fad cannot prevail over safety and security concerns. Surely all cricket fans want to return home safe and sound. None wants to be a victim of the Jihadis.
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I think the government/administration is paying the price for having the elections spread out over such a long time. Spreading it over a month is just shows that we are unable to handle something that is so important to the country (elections).
It is not fair for the rest of the country to be just suspended for such a long time. A few days is OK but the whole month is just not justifiable. Just imagine one more situation, what if the results of the elections force another one on the country right in time for the Commonwealth Games ? Are we going to let that go away as well ?
Also, the sports authorities, definitely the BCCI, should explore deploying private security for these events as they most certainly can afford it and can avoid such situations in the future.
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I am seeing every TDH taking a moral high ground that elections are more important than cricket. They are two completely different events with security being the common factor.
The IPL is a prestigious crowd/foreigners pulling event and might be symbolic target for the terroists, so that needs elaborate security.
What about the elections? Apart for a few politicos there is no threat from the external terrorists, it is these with these internal ones like the maos(even the taliban had offered to serve along with the pakistan army during ‘crisis’)/the booth captures/the riggers the large section of our political community that has made security at that scale a necessity.
Lets not get to self denial mode but accept the fact that even after 60 years of independence the largest democracy in the world ‘stops’ during the polls.
BTW have we informed all the world leaders that they are not welcome during the month and half long poll period to any state of India without obtaining a NOC from the states for security.
Shame! Shame!
(Disclaimer: I am a very regular voter and I feel that nobody is worth my vote. I cannot join politics as I have many a mile to go before I sleep…)
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When elections are on, all citizens must not even think about hunger, forget other things. Atleast thats what our dear gov’t likes to think. Atleast in cricket we control most of it, but think of the shame when the common wealth games gets transferred to another country, owing to this IPL2 precedent… great going Kaangi. L Modi has thrown a googly to Kaangi, which even N Modi will find it hard to beat. Kudos to all Modis.
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I am wondering why the secular media is silent about the bad treatment meted out to what is clearly a ‘Christian’ game! Come on mudhuka Muthalik and Ram Sene! Why are you guys keeping quiet?!!
OK we will have IPL Kabbadi or Kho Kho? What say?!!
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Gururaj:
I think you got it wrong. Elections are just a process of democracy. it is not the purpose of democracy.
The purpose of democracy is to provide a free and normal life to its citizens as possible, where they can pursue their happiness.
If that is denied for 2 months, just so that we can have elections, then it’d be like putting the cart in front of the horse!!!
I am not a cricket fan, but saying we can’t hold IPL because we can’t provide protection is just an abdication of responsibility. This will start extending to other spheres now. Who is to stop a home minister from saying any event that he doesn’t like can’t be held because it can’t be protected???
In fact, if the citizens can’t be protected by a govt. in carrying out their normal life/pursuits then it is an admission that there is a failure of law & order. Don’t you think such govts deserve to be dismissed???
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Paranoia and incompetence will make us export things other than cricket to safer venues. In any case, given the harm inflicted on the country by Parliament, could we not have postponed the elections and given cricket precedence? Of course, no matches should be played in coastal cities where killers can easily wade in from the sea with their weapons and mobile phones. I also think that the IPL can make even more money by letting politicians address the cricket watching crowds before the start of a match for a fee. Sixers all around.
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All the supporters of Govt’s denial of security and thus shifting of IPL out of India, consider this:
As of date, only pakistan has played its domestic cricket in what they called “neutral venues” like dubai. This is largely because it is a failed state. Even Zimbabwe hasn’t played a domestic international tournament in a ‘neutral venue’.
Now, India wants to go Pakistan way!! And PC keeps on harping that Pakistan is a failed state!!! Soon, Indian govt. will say BCCI can’t hold a test/one day cricket for they can’t provide protection, and they will shift to a neutral venue too!! what a sorry mess!!
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For once, UPA decision not to provide security support to IPL is correct. Arun Jaitley’s tirade against UPA government is two-tounged talk. If something untoward were to happen during the games, I am sure Arun Jaitley would be the first to condemn the government for failure to provide adequate security. What is “adequate” against faceless Jihadis?
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IPL not in India for security concerns ?Before you cast your vote , question the politicians “what kind of society you have built in six decades of indipendence”?
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What an idea Sirjee!!!!
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I also agree that UPA is correct in this.
I think modi along with ‘vasu’ is playing politics here. Already i read a statement from Modi/Jaitely on this. I am not sure how pawar is playing along in this.
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Just wanted to know.. Is the HomeMinister the final authority to say a game/show can/cannot happen in the country.
It’s a shame to the county where the government cannot provide security to a game which would have boosted confidence to other nations about India. This is giving a clear invitation to all the anti India elements that they will have a open passage to India from any side, bcoz the country is in elections.
Do we really need these kind of parties to come back to power?
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ಆಣ್ಣ೦ದಿರ, ಎಲೆಕ್ಶನ್ ಕಮಿಶನ್ ಇದನ್ನ ಮೊದಲೆ ಯೋಚನೆ ಮಾಡಿ, ಕ್ರಿಕೆಟ್ ಮ್ಯಾಚ್ ಗಳಿಗೆ ಅವಕಾಶ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಟ್ಟಿದ್ದರೆ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿತ್ತಲ್ಲವೆ ?
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This Congress government has lost all sense of governance. Just because they had a political issue with NCP supremo Pawar, they did not hesitate to put the country’s reputation at stake in front of international community.
Security is not the THE issue here. Ego, personal power and the typical characterstic of congressis falling at the feet of Sonia has resulted in this scenario.
Let us look at it this way. Karnataka gave the permission, HP gave the permission, Gujarat gave the permission, West Bengal gave the permission, MP gave the permission, Punjab gave the permission, Tamil Nadu could have been persuaded to give permission… thats seven states. Culprits???
Maharashtra – Ruled by congress…
AP – Ruled by Congress….
Rajasthan – Ruled by congress….
Now anyone still think security is the issue????
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I belong to a hallowed group of people whom the Media has termed the ‘Cricket Fans’ of India. We ‘Cricket Fans’ believe that Cricket is a religion. Yes religion like Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Mormonism etc. It’s true, even the media has said so. We have our gods. Sachin Tendulkar is the supreme god for some of us. There are many other gods – Sir Don, Len Hutton, Sir Sobers, Sir Richards to to Imran Khan to Lara to Dhoni etc. Our Gods endorse a lot of products which we use. Like Boost, Coke, Pepsi, Colgate and Britannia Biscuits. Some of our Gods claim to drink 1 litre of milk everyday thereby setting an example of proper nutrition to our upcoming generation. Our religion has festivals (IPL, Ashes, World Cup etc) and we have our Preists (Sunil Gavaskar, Lalith Modi, Ravi Shastri, Vijay Mallya, Preeti Junta, sharad pawar etc).
We cricket religionists demand that IPL be conducted in India whether election or no election. Would people stop going to the Haj or Vaishnavo devi or tirupathi or the wailing wall in Israel because of some elections. It is the duty of the Government and homeminster to provide security for us Bhaktadis. Elections should be postponed if it is goes against our religion. Even democracy should be scrapped if it becomes a threat to our Religion. We should impose military rule which guarantees security so that we can fulfill our religious obligation of going to watch the IPL tournament live, participate in SMS polls, watch our commentators analyze the finer aspects of our religion. I am thankful to NDTV, CNN IBN, Times Now, AAJ Tak, TV 9 and other media channels for constinously highligting the plight of our religion. Their 24X7 support will be remembered for their sublime contribution to our cricket religion when our religious history would be chronicled.
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At the end of the day lives of cricket players matter.
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Gururaj,
“What is “adequate” against faceless Jihadis?”
Going by this logic no amount of security is enough. So all of us get into a bunker? BTW I feel that it is the duty of the govt of the day to see that no untoward incidents happen during a cricketing tournament / election or both. If we say we are helpless the faceless jihadis’ have scored a point without the war!
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At the highest level the gasbags from BCCI and PC should have met and agreed to cancel the 2009 edition citing the Loksabha elections in India. I am sure that would have quietly drawn a curtain over all these unsavory comments about terrorism winning and shit. No doubt we have succumbed to the jihadis but at least by cancelling we could have shown them we are busy and serious about our governance first.
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It has already been stated that cricket is a religion,BJP is known(infamous) for mixing religion in politics and vice versa.So why blame BJP,its just doing what its best known for.
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VAlale SUbbanna – And true to form, Secular-Liberals are known for banishing (selectively of course) religion from the public domain. So, why blame them either, for being true to form.
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chidambaram dserves credit for his handling of IPL issue.
bjp by supporting likes of mallya, zinta etc has again proved that they are a party of lobbyists ,businessmen whose sole purpose is financial gain.
congress will gain becuse of the stand taken by them.
what is wrong with narendra modi who is equating IPL with national pride .
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Nano booking window is between Apr 9-25. Shouldn’t the gov’t cancel this too as the citizenry will be preoccupied with choosing the color of their Nano, instead of voting for their favorite numbskull?
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Dear Harkol and AnotherOne,
Can there be democracy without elections? Ignoring elections would be a case of putting the cart before the horse.
I am sure, you would be amongst the foremost to condemn if there is any failure in security another 26/11 occurs inside a cricket stadium. It is best to avoid the “clear and present danger” rather than go looking for trouble. After all, governments are made of men, not supermen. No amount of stuffing the stadium with security men would prevent a dozen determined Jihadis carrying backpacks, a la Ajmal Kasab.
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Gururaj – Somehow this does not seem right. There is merit in arguing that the show must go on.
People who will spend money on stadium tickets are also not fools. Everybody realizes the risks inherent. How long can/will our folks hide?
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Dear Palahalli,
I agree that show must go on. But, not when the elections are due and security focus is bound to be divided. In our country, elections have lowest priority in people’s personal agenda. That is how, voting along communal lines becomes important. When the vast majority of voters would rather watch IPL games than vote, we end up with leaders like Laloo, Bhaloo, Aloo. Can’t IPL games be played later on? I think, it is only a matter of getting one’s priority right. It is not as though IPL games or cricket per se are banished for ever.
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Gururaj, I have to agree with you here. The IPL could have been postponed to avoid overlap.
But I guess they had contractual commitments.
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Gururaj:
The IPL is going to be in South Africa now, which is going to have its elections in April as well!!!
You seem to suggest that Elections and normal living are mutually exclusive, and election is one extra-ordinarily important event that deserves life to be brought to a standstill.
I have a huge problem with that. Couple of decades back, our elections were being held on a single day, when there was no technical facilities of today. Today, the election commission insists on holding the election over a month, and also insists on all sorts of restrictions on normal living during that period.
Not having IPL match is just one of that.
For arguments sake – Lets say we were awarded Olympics (which is awarded more than 8 years in advance) and political developments in the country require the elections to be held at the same time.
Are we going to cancel Olympics and become a laughing stock among the world community??
My point is – The Government of the day has a responsibility to provide security under all circumstances. Abdicating that responsibility should automatically lead to the govt’s dismissal.
Congress govt. just did that!!!
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Today’s news:
Aussie Davis Cup team has put in a formal request to shift the venue of Davis Cup tie from Chennai back to Australia. The reason given? Shifting of IPL.
If this is not a huge blow to the reputation of our country, then what is? Today it will be Davis Cup tie, tomorrow Commonwealth Games?
There are a few who would argue this way: IPL is being held at a time when elections are happening and government cannot provide security to the matches since elections are more important than cricket.
Fair enough…. laudable argument. Except it has a flaw. In the guise of election, we cannot stop living. Right?
Also look at this scenario… IF there is a fractured verdict, IF there is another election which has to take place in 2010 because the government we elect now cannot survive….
Then would the country let go of the opportunity to conduct the CWG too???
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Chidambaram was a disaster as a finance minister. He is even more a disaster as a home minister.
The only thing PC did as FM was to increase taxes on the sly. He was instrumental in the phenomenal increase in the levy of Service Tax. People are bothered only about the direct taxes. While direct taxes affect only the tax paying public, service tax impacts everyone. Including the ones who live below the poverty line…
And who can forget the vengeful stance he took against ITC? When Supreme Court rejected the government’s claim on excise duty on ITC, he changed the whole law to be effective retrospectively, which was unheard of!!!
As a home minister, he seems to have completely gone bonkers. Imagine. The whole country coming to a standstill because this man thinks that he cannot provide security…
Another point to note here is, the IPL organisers could have gone ahead and hired a private security agency to handle all the security aspects of the tournament. The tournament would have had a smooth sail with no terrorist attacks. But they were, I think, more afraid of the goons from the congress disrupting the matches more than any terrorists!!!
Anyone remember the vandalism created by the very same goons creating havoc during Dr.Raj’s death in Bangalore??
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Dear Harkol,
Couple of decades back, the only threat to democratic election was booth capturing, that too, only in our notorious lawless States. None was trying to murder the voters during those days! I have not asserted that elections should disrupt normal life. But, neither IPL, nor terrorist threat are normal part of life.
Regarding Olympics, surely security is a concern. India, in its present condition can hardly expect to host Olympics, much less think of cancelling it.
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