Using the attacks on the players from Sri Lanka in Lahore, Pakistan, the Home Minister P. Chidambaram has suggested to the IPL authorities that may explore the option of postponing the elections. The reason for this suggestion is that the government may not be able to provide the security to the players simultaneously with extending the security to the political leadership as also to ensure the process of completion of voting in a peaceful manner. The home minister wants that the Indian Premier League matches itinerary be rescheduled after the Lok Sabha elections. But the league’s CEO, Sunder Raman, doesn’t quite endorse the idea being floated by the Home Minister.

The CEO of IPL has a counter poser as to why everything else in the country comes to a standstill because of politics? Though Raman is aware about the security as an issue, he does not agree that postponement is an option. The political dispension seems to be wary of the ability of the IPL to get more engrossed with it, than take interest in the political process, which may turn out to be deciding factor for quite a lot of political leaders. Most of the matches of the Indian Premier League are held during the evenings and this is also the time when the political leaders would like to have their political rallies, as it would be different to hold them in the scorching heat during the summers of April.

In response to Chidambaram’s statement, the IPL has come out with a statement, whose emphasis is that the Indian Premier League would chalk out a schedule to ensure that there is no clash of matches with the election dates. The IPL is fully cognizant of the importance of general elections in a country and would strive to ensure that there will be no games 24 to 48 hours prior to the polling dates across all the nine match venues in the country.

But Raman wanted the issue to be addressed in a proper perspective and explained it by an example. He asked why should a match happening in Jaipur or Delhi be postponed if the poll is going on say in Vizag?

The Home Ministry does not buy the idea. It is of the view that paramilitary forces are in a short supply and it could become a stumbling block. If the Indian Premier League is postponed it would mean canceling it for this year, and it would not be palatable to the franchisees, as they have already pumped in huge amounts. Besides, with the cricket calendar already choc-a-bloc, another window for the IPL will be extremely difficult to find.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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