Parliamentarian : Politics Today: It’s Simply
“Typically Raj Kapoor: Mera Joota Hai Japani Yeh Patloon Englishtani Sar Pe Laal Topi Roosi … Rajeev Shukla is best seen through the prism you chose: political commentator, television host, politician, entrepreneur and a cricket administrator. In a session moderated by Parliamentarian’s Senior Editor Sharad Gupta, Shukla spoke about a range of issues”

Why do you think cricket in India is speeding like a rocket and other sports falling like rocks? Don’t you think skyrocketing popularity of cricket is adversely affecting other sports, especially after the advent of IPL?
Because of the people who are sitting here and who love this game. I will give the credit of popularising this game to our old players and also commentators like Jasdev Singh in the days of radio, who used to give such fantastic commentary in Hindi. Because India’s performance at that time was not all that good and we used to lose lots of matches. Yet, if people liked the game, credit should be given to those extraordinarily gifted players and Hindi commentators. In between, hockey was also popular for almost a decade before losing its charm again.
During the past India has won only 26 medals in summer Olympic and none in the winter versions. In comparison, China has won 473 medals in summer Olympic alone during the same period. Despite being in power for most of the time since Independence, why couldn’t Congress improve the situation?
Shall I tell you the truth? The BCCI is the only organisation which is completely independent of the government. It doesn’t take any help from the government. It rather pays several thousand crores to the government in income tax. No other sports organisation does that. That is why BCCI is free from bureaucratic control. Other sports don’t get that kind of grants with which they can create the infrastructure to compete at world level. Neither can they help sportspersons get the required equipment nor make other arrangements. That is why these sports federations are in a pitiable state and unable to grow.
BCCI has been free from such encumbrances. It created its own models. It sold its TV rights and popularised the game. Another reason is that only 12 countries play cricket, whereas other sports are being competed by at least 100 countries. That is why it is a tough job to popularise a sport played by so few countries. This was done by our former administrators. There has been a representation of all parts of the society in the BCCI — without discriminating against any one- bureaucrats, politicians, cricketers, lawyers, businessmen — it has been a bouquet in which people from all walks of life used experiences in their respective fields to create the grand organisation it is today.
You say sports federations are not autonomous. But, that’s not true. They all are autonomous. It’s in their statutes.
No, they are controlled only by bureaucrats. When any government department releases grants, it puts certain conditions and the federation is bound by these conditions. You have often heard that a delegation going to take part in an international contest is comprised by many such people who have nothing to do with that sport. Bureaucrats who have nothing to do with the sport are also part of the delegation. That is why there is always a lot of cribbing post-event about such things. I think there is too much bureaucratic interference, which is why these sports are unable to grow the way they should.
Besides, the quantum of grants is too low for them to create infrastructure. For example in boxing. Haryana can provide very good boxers. But they don’t have that kind of infrastructure, equipment, diet plan, and so on, so they are doing on their own whatever they can do. But go to Australia, or China, and see the kind of investments they make in sports infrastructure. You can’t even imagine that.
Your party ran the government for 10 years and you too were part of it? What did you guys do to improve the situation?
We asked the finance minister to enhance the grants and he did that. We promoted rural sports too. But to have world class infrastructure, you require 10 times increase in the budget, not just double or triple of the previous budget, and no finance minister can do that. That is why each sport must have the capacity to generate its own resources and revenue. As far as cricket being a rich sport is concerned, this situation is only in India. Take the case of West Indies. Their cricket board doesn’t have money. There are many countries that BCCI helps. ICC too organises some tournaments to give money to these countries. India contributes 80 per cent of the ICC revenue that is why we are demanding that our share in the disbursement of funds too should be increased.
There are eight other sports in the country which have their own championships on the patterns of Indian Premier League (IPL) of cricket. But, none of them, like volleyball, wrestling, boxing, badminton, etc., are 10 per cent as popular as cricket. What do you, as IPL chairman, see as the reason?
KPMG has recently got a study done which found that 92 percent of sports-watchers in India like to watch only cricket, with all other sports put together being watched by remaining 8 per cent. We are a cash-rich body and want to contribute to other sports as well. We decided to donate Rs 50 crore to the sports ministry to develop other sports where India has a strong possibility of getting an Olympic medal. We also decided to give Rs 25 crore to sports federations. But the Income Tax department immediately objected, saying when your job is to run cricket, so why are you squandering money on other sports. So only by spending Rs 75 crore on helping other sports, we ended up losing Rs 2,500 crore on paying income tax. After that, we have been consistently paying income tax. So how can other sports grow when income tax department doesn’t allow us to help them?
Why is BCCI a very closed-door organisation, with only a handful of people controlling it? So much so that the Supreme Court had to disband the BCCI and appoint its own four-member panel to run the BCCI. Why did it require the court to do it and why didn’t BCCI decide on its own?
This is a false allegation. BCCI is the only organisation which already has a fixed period for its office bearers. No one can be its President for more than three years. You can check on that. All its Presidents were retired after completion of their term — whether it was NKP Salve, Jagmohan Dalmiya, IS Bindra, Raj Singh Dungarpur or Madhavrao Scindia. People in other sports organisations are reigning for several years. The court need not to have interfered.
Is BCCI going to accept and implement all the recommendations of the Lodha Committee formed by the Supreme Court of India?
We are in agreement with a large number of recommendations of the Lodha Committee formed to reform the BCCI. We have already implemented 80 percent of them. But there are some reforms on which we don’t agree with, and have been appealing to the committee. For example cancelling the membership of Mumbai –the cricket body which has the largest contribution to the growth of cricket in India. It has produced the largest number of most illustrious players. How can you cancel its membership and instead make states like Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur, which have produced not even a single Ranji trophy player? How fair is this recommendation?
Similarly, organisations like Railways and Defence Ministry not only produced a large number of players but also provided them employment. Similar is the case of Universities — the nursery of budding players. We are not opposed to giving membership to smaller states like Meghalaya but are against revoking memberships of Railways, Universities and Defence. Same is the case of states like Baroda, Saurashtra, Vidarbha — which have contributed significantly to the growth of cricket in India. Memberships of all these states are under threat. These are some of the things on which we requested the Lodha Committee to rethink.
When we have already accepted 80 percent of their suggestions whether these are about fixing an age limit for our office bearers, or about tenure, or about putting all our accounts on our website, or getting our accounts audited, about appointing an ombudsman or appointing an ethics officer — we have already accepted all their recommendations. We have strong reservations about its move against people who have raised the level cricket in India.
You been very close to the Congress party and since you come from UP, what do you to say of the rout suffered by the party there winning only 7 of 105 seats contested in the 403 Assembly seats?
See, in whatever state we are in, we are in a much better state than what BJP used to be in once. BJP had only two MPs in Lok Sabha in 1984 and wasn’t in power in any state in the country. Politics has difference phases and win and loss is part of the game. These phases keep changing. That’s why we are hopeful that even this phase will change and we will do much better next time. There is no need to be dispirited and despondent. You are right. We are on a constant decline in UPA, the major reason for that is poor party organisation in the state. And most importantly, Congress doesn’t believe in indulging in vote bank politics. If we too had attempted to woo castes and communities, Congress would not have been in the state it is today. We always treated all castes and communities at par, which caused erosion of our support base, weakening of our party structure and severe resource crunch. Other parties tried to polarise the electorate on caste and communal lines.
Why do you think Congress failed to form the government in Manipur and Goa despite coming so close to the majority?
Yes, we were short of a majority by only one or two MLAs in both these states and BJP was far away from the halfway mark. But since the Governor and Centre put all its might in wooing independents and smaller parties by hook or crook, they succeeded. For example in Goa, the outgoing chief minister lost the election, and even all eight ministers of his cabinet lost their election. That means people’s mandate was against them. But they used all tricks in the trade — money, allurements and above all, the Governor to get the required number of MLAs. The Governor herself admitted that she consulted some ministers on the future course of action before inviting the BJP to form the government.
Weren’t all these things associated with the Congress earlier?
No. Whatever Congress did it never did so blatantly. BJP chief Amit Shah announced that his party was going to form the government even as votes were still being counted. That means, they had already decided to form a government by hook or by crook. How could we have staked claim even before the announcement of results?
Has the party become untouchable for other parties, like the BJP used to be before 1998? Do you see any light at the end of the tunnel?
Not exactly. That is the trend in the North East. They want to get associated with the party which is in power at the centre.
The party is facing debacle after debacle during past seven years, so what do you think is the reason and how can it be revived? Since Mr Rahul Gandhi is at the helm of affairs all these days leading the party in election after election with little success, do you think its time for him to take the blame and step down, making way for someone else?
I have already told you the reasons for our debacle. Did Atal Bihari and Lal Krishna Advani resign when their party lost miserably? It was their leadership which ensured that BJP bounced back and formed the government 14 years later. In Gujarat too, the BJP kept on losing but didn’t shun Keshubhai Patel, who ultimately got them the state and become chief minister. I am not in favour of holding only one person responsible for our defeat. We all are responsible. We will have to change our strategy, strengthen our organisation and generate better resources.
Don’t you think Congress is undergoing a leadership crisis? There are very few leaders left and the young and capable leaders are not getting a chance.
No, I don’t think so. Even if I put the same question to the BJP can any BJP leader say he is number two after Narendra Modi? We have a long and capable leadership. Priyanka ji too keeps chipping in with her advice. Take for example, Sushmita Dev who is sitting here — is there more a fiery leader than her today? Leadership has to be groomed. The void is in the BJP. People often say BJP suffers from talent deficit. The same is not true for the Congress.
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