So the Cricket Association of Bengal (or CAB) has lost the right to host the India-England match at the Eden Gardens. Work on the stadium, under virtually complete re-construction, is hopelessly incomplete; the ground itself is covered with rubble; and anyone who sees the mess comes to the immediate conclusion that the stadium and ground will not be ready in time for the World Cup. So it may not be just the India-England match, the hallowed Eden Gardens might lose all four World Cup matches. Can CAB ever live this down?
So what has CAB been thinking? Suresh Kalmadi has been unemployed since October, and should have been called right then to fix things. In a country notoriously short of doers (though not of fixers), there is no one other than Mr Kalmadi with a proven record of delivering (and fixing) in impossible circumstances. One recognises that Mr Kalmadi has an image problem. But you mean to say that Jagmohan Dalmiya and Sharad Pawar, cricket lords of Bengal and India, don’t? Let’s get real, man.
CAB should have got past the fact that a scandal-hungry press and a scandal-evading chief minister have been looking for a scapegoat; it should have looked at his real achievements, and the over-riding fact that Mr Kalmadi delivered the Games in two years of effective preparation time (most Games organisers get six). Plus, he had to deal with multiple authorities, one sports minister who did not want the Games to be held at all, another who did not know a medal winner from his coach....
Consider also Mr Kalmadi’s ability to get what he wants. The Cabinet had decided that the chairman of the Games Organising Committee would be a government nominee, and Mr Kalmadi would be the vice-chairman. But when the dust cleared, it was Mr Kalmadi who was chairman. The Cabinet had set revenue targets for the Games. But before you could say whodunit, the government said any shortfall in revenue would be at its cost; any surplus would go to Mr Kalmadi of course. That’s not all. When the Commonwealth Games Federation got picky, he paid one of their chaps zillions in salary, gave him a free Mercedes and house, and even paid his income tax for him. That shut them up. Best of all, he gave contracts to people the CGF favoured. Think of the benefits that might have come to the friends of Mr Dalmiya...oh, what opportunity missed!
The babus who never deliver anything anyway tried to tie Mr Kalmadi up in reams of red tape; all contracts would have to be cleared by a government official, a finance committee would have the expenditure secretary and others on it, there would be concurrent audit by the CAG. Mr Kalmadi could not put pen to cheque without taking on the government's battlements. Well, did that stop him? Of course not! All it did was to give him an alibi; all expenditure that he incurred had been cleared by the government’s own people! Considering that he still has not been arrested, unlike the foolish Mr Raja, the CAB should have known who the real artist is, when it comes to creating common wealth. So while Mr Kalmadi waits for an elusive Padma Vibhushan from an ungrateful government, the CAB can only rue what might have been.