Manmohan, Gill to keep eye on Kalmadi, Games

Despite the plethora of allegations of large scams involving the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee (OC), the Congress core committee has decided it will not rock the boat at this stage, with only 51 days to go before the Games start on October 3. Aurangzeb Naqshbandi reports.

Despite the plethora of allegations of large scams involving the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee (OC), the Congress core committee has decided it will not rock the boat at this stage, with only 51 days to go before the Games start on October 3.

But OC president Suresh Kalmadi — against whom personally too several charges have been hurled — will be put under close watch.

HT Image

At a two-hour-long meeting on Friday, the committee — comprising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Home Minister P Chidambaram, Defence Minister AK Antony and Congress general secretary Ahmed Patel — took serious note of the allegations, but decided the government should evolve a mechanism to monitor the preparations from now on to ensure no more embarrassments ensued.

Exactly what the mechanism should be will be decided by Singh after discussions with Sports Minister MS Gill.

The Congress does not want to take responsibility for the event at this late stage. Nor does it want to take any action that will be detrimental to the smooth conduct of the Games. The committee felt that since the Games were being held in India for the first time, it was imperative to ensure their success. Failure would bring the country a bad name, it was felt.