HI secy targets govt, blasts Pargat
NEW DELHI: Hockey India’s secretary general Narinder Batra rushed to the defence of Suresh Kalmadi a day after former captain Pargat Singh accused the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president of being a ‘sports mafia’.
Batra said that the former Olympian’s comments smacked of frustration as his dream of being the secretary general of HI was fading due to lack of support. Batra also took a potshot at the sports ministry, saying: “They are acting like sports ministry, govt of Punjab and not govt of India.”
Even as Batra batted for Kalmadi, Olympian Gurbux Singh Grewal and two senior administrators appealed to the govt to take over HI to successfully host the World Cup. They blamed Kalmadi for letting HI get away with “shameful acts”. “In the last two years, they (HI) have committed blunders. We cannot spell out certain shameful acts committed by them under the stewardship of Suresh Kalmadi,” Grewal and Shetty said.
Meanwhile, Batra told media persons: “I really appreciate Pargat but whatever he said on Sunday was in really bad taste.”
Batra accused Pargat of accusing Kalmadi without valid reasons. “It was Pargat’s ambition to be the secretary general of HI, a post which was assured to him once he joined forces with JB Roy (president of Hockey Bengal), who himself was in running for the post of the president. But now seeing that they were not able to garner enough support, Pargat decided to accuse Kalmadi without any basis.” Batra added: “Kalmadi was never a candidate for the HI elections, not then, not now. Pargat, Amrit Bose, Gurbux Singh and Raj Kumar Jaipal were part of the process of sorting put affiliations.”
Handing out copies of communication between different state units and the sports ministry to the media, Batra blamed the sports ministry for showing targetting HI.
“The mails received by us from some state units seem to have emanated from the ministry because the language used is generally written by the officials of the ministry. We were being pressurised to grant affiliation to the Punjab body without proper documents? I wonder why are they acting like this?”