THE COUNTRY AWAITS THE TRIAL OF THE CWG SCAMSTERS – WHO SHAMED SPORTS AND
INDIA
The news about the framing of charges against a
clutch of officials of the Organizing Committee for the 2010 Common Wealth
Games (CWG) viz Suresh Kalmadi, Lalit Bhanot and nine others,who are guilty of
corruption, criminal conspiracy, forgery, intimidation etc under various
sections of the IPC and Corruption Act of India; is an emotional escape from
the disgusting act of six men who physically and emotionally brutalised a 23
year old girl in Delhi. For those of us who are suitably informed about the
happenings in the sports management and administration organizations which run,
nurture and promote sports in the country, through the offices of various
sports federations/ associations; the names of Kalmadi and Bhanot are known for
all the wrong reasons than anything worthy. These two men had made the IOA and
the Athletics Federation of India, as their private concerns and were destined
to continue doing so in perpetuity, had the Government’s sports code and the
CBI not spoilt their party. Kalmadi, when he was the president of the Athletics
Federation, had Bhanot as his Secretary and it is from there that their nexus
flourished and prospered, to favour him with a plum assignment in the
Organizing Committee (OC) of the CWG, that of the Secretary General. It was
here that these two and their other cohort, of the now charge sheeted accomplices,
who were party to various misdeeds of financial nature in similar dealings
earlier too, made merry with the tax payers money by lining their pockets. Anil
Madan of Gem Enterprises, a manufacturing and trading firm in Faridabad and his
partner, are vendors and suppliers for brand ‘Omega’ and have been in business
in India for quite some time. They have thus been in close and commercial touch
with the likes of Kalmadi, Bhanot, Verma, Prasad and others in the course of
their business dealings. Any major international or else national level sports
event, which is scheduled and conducted in the country, is an opportunity for
those dealing in the sports industry to make a financial kill by selling and
providing related hardware. And it was during such times that Madan could
become passively aggressive in his attempt to somehow or the other win the bid
and get the order. I have personally dealt with Madan and his company Gem
Enterprises in my official capacity in the Army HQ, during the course of the
Army’s surge to win medals in the Olympics and launch its ‘Mission Olympics’. I
remember him as a portly, well heeled, affable, polite and courteous man who
was correct to a fault in his behaviour and conduct. His persuasive skills and research
into the equipment/ material that he had on offer to supply and provide were
exceptional, convincing and saleable. It was difficult to say no to him.
Moreover, the fact that he was the sole supplier representing an
internationally reputed company ‘Omega’ in India, settled the indecision to purchase
what was required in his Company’s favour, because of its indisputable quality.
While the quality was a given, the prices too were high in comparison to
similar products available in the market, from other vendors/manufacturers. The
armed forces, for the conduct of the Military World Games in 2007, held at Hyderabad
and Mumbai, bought much electronic equipment from his Company, Gem Enterprises.
We, in the Technical Conduct Committee of the Games were hosted to two or three
dinners in Delhi and Secunderabad by Madan and his business partner Purshottam,
as an expression of their gratitude for enabling the purchase order to come
through, in favour of their Company. The pleasure was entirely ours and we
enjoyed the company of these two gentlemen, only because of their ability to
have some social compatibility with us. Thereafter, retirement from service
followed in a year’s time and we moved to Pune, which was preparing to host the
Common Wealth Youth Games in 2008. Madan and his Company had made bids for the
supply of equipment here too and this brought him to Pune often, during the
build up to the Games. I tried to get in touch with him while he was there, to
invite him over to our home to exchange pleasantries and reciprocate the
courtesy he had shown us by having us for dinner with him, earlier. It was
disappointing to say the least that, he neither received my call nor made any
attempt to respond to my earnest courtesy. That was the end of the matter with
me and I moved along, albeit with some questions in my mind about the nature of
human relationships.
Thereafter, the Common Wealth Games scam bubble
burst and Madan’s Gem Enterprise featured in the dubious story related to the
purchase of the Timing, Scoring and Result (TSR) system purchased for the event
at a prohibitive cost of about Rs 165 crores, which was at least costlier by Rs
90 crores to what was on offer by a Spanish Company. That, the decision to
purchase the TSR system from Gem Enterprise was taken even before the tendering
process had been initiated, raises some serious doubts about and exemplifies
the selling skills of Madan and his partner Purshottam. It puts a big question
mark on the deliberate disregard of propriety of the procedure, existing for
the purpose of procurement, involving the tax payer’s money from government coffers.
While Gem was able to clinch the deal
and make a profit for the Company and ‘Omega’, Kalmadi, Bhanot, Verma, Prasad
etc too were smiling all the way to their bank accounts, whether here in India
or else abroad in any one of the banks, which have been in public gaze for
parking slush money. Madan and
Purshottam were done in, because their Company accounts showed the payment in
excess of what was actually priced by ‘Omega’ and to have been transferred to
the account of an unknown and specious organization in Singapore, headed by Kalmadi.
And it was from there that the money trail probably leads to the accounts of
the other disgraced accomplices of Kalmadi, who were with him in the OC of the
CWG. It is this very same Kalmadi, who moved about as an imperious sports aficionado,
inspecting and surveying the various venues of the CWG and threatened to sue a
TV news channel for making unsubstantiated and not established charges of
corruption against him, in the use of funds for the Queen’s Baton Relay held in
London, as a precursor to the Delhi Games. His equally moronic and supercilious
Secretary General in the OC of the CWG, Bhanot, prospered under the shadow of
his mentor and lived on Dutch courage, injected by the political stature of his
Chairman. This became only too obvious when the tainted Bhanot was presented a
bouquet and congratulated by Kalmadi, when the former was elected uncontested
as the Secretary General of the Indian Olympic Assocation (IOA), which has
since been de recognized by the parent body International Olympic Committee
(IOC). This much to say for the stalwarts, sports administrators, managers and
leaders of sports bodies, which are mandated to promote and nurture sports and
sportspersons. They mirror the political class in the country, which cocks a
snook at the people of the country who are not forthcoming to show them out of
the door, for want of courage and underlying fear.
We, do hope that in keeping with the hopes of the
people and in accordance with the canons of law as enshrined in our system of
jurisprudence, these black-guards who pollute and discredit our society are
punished in an exemplary manner, so as to set an example for others who are on
the fringes of skulduggery in our society and its political class. It is then
and only then that, there is some hope of democracy being prevented from
getting derailed in India and becoming a glorious sham, which it presently is.
Brigadier (retd) S D Dangwal
+919410900051
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