Pargat lambasts Kalmadi

MS Unnikrishnan

Former Olympian Pargat Singh, who is contesting for the post of president in the Hockey India (HI) elections on July 28, today accused Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Suresh Kalmadi of remote controlling HI through his proxies.

“Kalmadi is running sports like an old filmi villian, surrounded by his henchmen. He is the ugly face of the Indian sports,” Pargat said. He said “spineless people” were running sports, and in the HI, out of the seven ad hoc committee members, five had quit and only two remained. He wondered how they could take a unilateral decision of rejecting the government aid, as they had no locus to take such an important decision.

He said he would not abide by the decision of the HI if elected as the president, as he would take the majority opinion along. “If the government does not recognise your body, how would you send your teams abroad,” Pargat asked. Pargat said it was surprising that the HI did not adhere to the recommendation of the five-member committee constituted by it to probe the sexual misconduct allegation levelled against former chief coach of the women’s hockey team MK Kaushik by a player, Rajitha Devi. He said such controversies could be avoided if all-women staff were appointed with the women’s team, who would stay with them 24 hours.

He said it was in fact the IOA’s job to constitute an independent Redressal Cell, having legal professionals, to deal with such cases by following the law of land. “Personally, the Kaushik episode was mismanaged due to loose administration as the HI handled it in a childish way; they did not handle it professionally.”

Taking a clever swipe at HI candidate for the post of president, the 83-year-old Vidya Stokes, Pargat said she indeed had considerable experience and might have even watched Dhyan Chand play hockey, though his chances of victory was bright as he enjoyed the supports of 35 of the 60 voters in the electoral college. The only problem area Pargat finds in his panel was for the post of secretary as his candidate was rejected, and HI’s Narinder Batra was expected to give a tough challenge.

Pargat said he was fighting the HI elections on his integrity. “I have no money or muscle power,” he stated. He said hockey was still a popular game in India as it had a standing of seventh-eighth in the world. He said sponsors would come to support the game if it was marketed properly, as cricket had become a costly game. He added that his priority would be to strengthen the domestic structure of hockey, to bring in more international tournaments, manage the technical, marketing and the media departments in a competent manner. “I have a definite plan for hockey,” he said.