Last Weeks Poll Review: Politics and Cricket collide

In last week’s Mumbai Indian Fan Club poll, we had asked our readers if "securityconcerns" were, in fact, the true reason for the IPL to be shifted to South Africa. 73% said that it was not. We knew without a moment’s hesitation that the terrorist attack in Pakistan on the Sri Lankan cricket team would cause more than a few ripples to the IPL schedule, but no one anticipated that an Indian Premier league would be played on foreign turf.

India has had security issues and I need not remind people of that but to tag the nation unsafe because of something that happened in another country would be ignorant - it’s as ridiculous as saying ‘some crazed lunatic locked his kids up for twenty years and impregnated his daughter in Austria, so children in London are not safe.’


Coming back to the poll, the results quite clearly showed that “security” was just a facade put in front of a gamut of political issues; mainly those of personal gain for our crooked chiefs in the upcoming elections.

With approval ratings steadily declining, the Congress couldn't afford another defence lapse, which would lead to their extermination from authority. They have been hosts to terrorist attacks, inflation, strikes and not to mention the biggest economic recession since independence; so if they seemed concerned, they needed to be. Quite obviously, there was an instantaneous “no!” echoing from the corridors of power in the Congress led states.

Meanwhile, the BJP had their tongues wagging at the opportunity of putting the Congress on the brink of blunder. Suddenly news arrives that matches will be played in Dharamshala! (Is there even a ground there up in those marijuana clad mountains??!!) The Advani led states insinuated that their states were safe and were ready to hold the IPL.

Then there was the issue with the Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan who revoked his decision of providing security for the cricketing event. The problem was born out of a tussle between Nationalist Congress Party and Congress over two Lok Sabha constituencies. A NCP minister was quoted saying that the “Congress wanted us to declare that Pawar will not be a prime ministerial candidate and also wanted us to part with Osmanabad and Nagar, where we have formidable candidates and will certainly win. The only way they knew they could put pressure on us was the IPL”. It all added up, BCCI chief Sharad Pawar would definitely hurt if the much anticipated IPL went down like the Titanic. So rather than cancelling it all together, Lalit Modi and his crew of cricketers are now sailing to South Africa.

What this whole episode has done is – piss a whole lot of people off. A bunch of fans told me that they will not vote because of this. I think that’s absolutely preposterous. Yes, I agree that the Indian political arena is full of slimy politicians but to call the entire basket a bunch of bad apples and not do anything about it is just despicable on our part. There are some good people out there, just do your research and wake up from this slump of apathy. If you honestly believe that nothing will change and don’t do anything to change it… I don’t even need to finish that sentence really. We promised that we would rise to change things after 26/11 and here is our chance… wake the f@(# up! Get out and vote!