New Delhi, Sept. 23: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is not expected to meet Commonwealth Games Federation president Michael Fennell and has kept organising committee boss Suresh Kalmadi out of a key meeting in an apparent expression of unhappiness at the sports bureaucracy.
Fennell, who reached Delhi today and sought an appointment with the Prime Minister, has been asked to meet the cabinet secretary. The Games official is also likely to meet the group of ministers monitoring the preparations for the Games, scheduled to kick off on October 3.
Sources said the Prime Minister was extremely unhappy over the Games preparations and the controversies that had engulfed the event. He is learnt to have conveyed to his colleagues that the nation had been misled all along.
Singh, who presided over a 90-minute meeting where Kalmadi was not present, has directed all stakeholders to ensure that the country is spared further embarrassment, the sources said.
The sources said the Prime Minister’s reluctance to meet Fennell could be traced back to events a few years ago. A section of the government was then in favour of cutting Kalmadi down to size or replacing him. But Fennell had then cited a charter to bail out Kalmadi.
With the Games now caught in scandal after scandal, a section of the government feels that the wider sports bureaucracy, not necessarily confined to the country, should not wash its hands of the mess.
Indian officials are also peeved at Commonwealth Games Federation chief executive Mike Hooper’s attempt to lay the entire blame at the host country’s doors. India has only itself to blame for the mess, Hooper told NDTV 24X7.
“The responsibility for the Games is not mine or the federation’s at all,” Hooper said, adding that the Centre “at the highest level is now showing heightened urgency”.
Kalmadi, who has been lying low for the past few days, today drove to the airport to receive Fennell. Kalmadi promised a “good Games” — a climbdown from his “better than Beijing ” refrain.
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