Now, Aiyar explains why India lost Asian Games bid

The minister hits back at Indian Olympic Association, saying that the bid of Republic of Korea carried more weight than the Indian presentation, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: May 11, 2007, 01:05:29 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Passing the buck over hosting of the Asian Games in Delhi in 2014 has yet not stopped.

Sports Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar on Thursday hits back at Indian Olympic Association (IOA) saying that the bid of Republic of Korea carried more weight than the ‘Indian presentation’ because they said they would be showcasing all of Asia at Incheon and not just Korea alone.

IOA president Suresh Kalmadi had blamed Aiyar for losing the bid. The comments made by Aiyar on India hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2010 and Asian Games in 2014 was circulated at the meeting by the Korean delegation, leading to India losing the bid, IOA had claimed. Aiyar had said that hosting such games in a poor country like India does not benefit the citizens. "Mani and money had cost us the games," Kalmadi had said, after losing the bid. The Korea’s financial bid was much higher than that of IOA.

Replying to a question in Rajya Sabha, Aiyar said the Republic of Korea’s bid in the city of Incheon succeeded mainly for two reasons. "Partly because the RoK delegation said they would be showcasing entire Asia and that Delhi had hosted the games twice before," Aiyar said. Delhi had hosted the inaugural game in 1951 and then in 1982.

Stating that the number of votes polled for India was not known, Aiyar said, "the ballot was secret and no explanation of vote was required either before or after the vote." In that scenario, he said, "it is not possible to categorically state the reasons for which the vote was lost but it is to be noted that the Chairman of the Olympic Council of Asia announced that the vote was decided by a narrow margin."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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