CWG bid tampered to let Kalmadi be chairman?
After allegations of mismanagement, overspending and corruption, a new controversy has hit the DelhiCommonwealth Games.
Documents accessed by CNN-IBN raise questions over the legitimacy of the Commonwealth GamesOrganising Committee (CWG OC) headed by Indian Olympic Association President Suresh Kalmadi. They indicate that the original bid documents submitted by the OC to 72 countries of the Commonwealth in 2003 were tampered with.
CNN-IBN has found discrepancies between the bid documents available to the public through the CWG Federation website and the ones currently lying with the Sports Ministry and the OC. In the original bid cleared by the Vajpayee Administration in 2003, the Chairman of the CWG OC was to have been nominated by the government, while the IOA president's position was to be that of Vice Chairman.
However, in the updated bid copy, terms like 'government nominee' and 'IOA President' were removed, thus enabling Suresh Kalmadi to become the OC Chairman when the Committee was finally set up on February 10, 2005.
Just who authorized the change? In December 2003, Vikram Verma of the BJP was the sports minister. When shown the document, he expressed shock, saying that it was clear that the bid had been tampered with. "An enquiry should be conducted," he said.
When contacted, Suresh Kalmadi said he did not remember something that had happened seven years ago. But the selective amnesia cannot prevent us from asking some important questions:
Who changed the specific line in the document relating to the OC?
How was this done without the approval of the Vajpayee
Administration?
Was Kalmadi aware of the change and did he influence it in any way?
If Kalmadi is not to be blamed then who in the government was responsible for making the change?
Why have successive sports ministers kept quiet on this matter?
No sports ministry official was willing to come on record to answer these questions. Former sports ministerMani Shankar Aiyar told CNN-IBN that he had a gag order not to speak on the CWG. However, sources close to Aiyar told CNN-IBN: “We had brought this and various matters connected to the CWG to the notice of the Centre. However, no one seemed concerned over it.” OC officials too do not want to comment on who changed the bid document.
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