Predictably, sports minister Ajay Maken stirred up a hornets’ nest by placing an overarching National Sports Development Bill before the Union Cabinet, and then seeing it summarily rejected after strenuous objections by at least three other ministers. He has now vowed to present a new document taking into account the objections raised at Monday’s meeting. Mr Maken has gone a step further, affirming the recast bill will retain three key clauses from the first draft: that all sports associations and federations must agree to come under the Right to Information Act to ensure transparency, that they must put in place a cap on the age and tenure of those holding office, and finally, that at least 25 per cent of executive committees seats in all national sports bodies must be reserved for former sportspersons and athletes. What got the goat of his senior Cabinet colleagues — Sharad Pawar and C.P. Joshi (who represent the interests of the Indian cricket board) and Praful Patel (All India Football Federation president) — is the RTI Act clause. At the Cabinet meeting that rejected the initial draft, it was labelled an “instrument of control”, which was not acceptable to his colleagues holding key positions in various sports federations. In a sense, Mr Maken is walking a well-trodden path in seeking to make national sports associations accountable, particularly when almost all of them (though not the BCCI) are dependent on government funding. Earlier sports ministers have attempted to do so and come to grief, mainly over the apparent infringement of the Olympic Charter, which holds out a fair degree of autonomy to such federations.
In the past, such opposition was led by now-disgraced Suresh Kalmadi, who effectively used communiqués from the International Olympic Committee to deflect these endeavours — and in the process probably contributed to the mess that eventually enveloped the Delhi Commonwealth Games last year. But Mr Maken’s draft bill certainly has put the wind up the BCCI, particularly on the question of transparency. Defenders of the board’s position have a point in that it is one outfit that takes no government funding whatsoever, and this does not need to be clubbed with or treated like other associations or federations. But this is an argument that can cut two ways: the BCCI is looking to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds in seeking to represent India, yet accept none of the strings that go with the status, as the sports minister has pointed out. In any case, with neither side keen to give ground, no early solution appears to be in sight.