IPL versus BPL

With the World Cup round the corner, cricket seemed to be the metaphor of the day. At a seminar on minimum wages for the unorganised sector in the capital, CPM leader Sitaram Yechury classified India’s rich and poor as IPL Bharat and BPL Bharat. An Indian Premier League cricketer gets Rs 11 crore for a season, he said, but the man on the street digging ditches is denied the guarantee of minimum wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, he said. Minister of State for Labour and Employment Harish Rawat who spoke next hit a few verbal sixes himself. “I came for a Test match but it has turned into a 20-20,” he began, adding that “the finest fast bowlers are here”. He was referring to Yechury who had attacked the government for the 2G spectrum scam and the wastefulness of the Commonwealth Games. Rawat then listed a series of legislation that are coming up to reform labour laws and said the government was more than prepared to take bowling from all sides.