"Goliath kills David"

Thousands of years before the birth of Christ(BC),in the Jewish kingdom, there was a giant called Goliath. He was a man of might and was unchallenged.All were scared including the King. One fine day, a small boy named David took up the challenge to fight with Goliath. It was similar to a battle between a Giant and a Lilliputian. David,using a catapult killed Goliath and later became the famous 'King David'. There ends the story.Few days before, Goliath took up a fight with David.Tharoor never realized that he was just a Lilliputian in front of mighty Goliath( Lalit Modi).Instead of going for a truce by surrendering 'Kochi IPL franchisee' to the whims and wishes of Goliath,he thought after all he is Minister of State, and accepted Goliath's offer to fight. Entire nation witnessed. History DID NOT repeat this time.Goliath killed David. A month before, BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu made a remark in Rajya Sabha which created laughter in the Upper House.He remarked that Tharoor's Twitting(he meant tweeting)will lead to his Quitting.Venkaiah Naidu was alomost right. Tweeting led to quitting but it was Modi's tweeting.Shashi Tharoor has been forced to resign because prima facie he appears to be guilty.Lalit Modi is Goliath not because he is IPL chairman, he is Goliath because he is ‘Lalit Modi’. Forget Tharoor, even the Cabinet Minister for External Affairs cannot take a decision when it affects the relation with foreign country like Pakistan without the consent of Cabinet headed by the Prime Minister.But our Goliath took a decision with his cabinet colleagues Shilpa Shetty and Preity Zinta to ban Pakistani players from attending IPL 3 which severely affected relations with Pakistan at that point of time.But our Goliath got away unharmed. When most of the middle class population run after LIC agents during March to save few thousands of rupees to save from tax, our Goliath tried to evade around two hundred crores of rupees as entertainment tax from Maharashtra Government(which could have been used for infrastructure projects) citing the reason that IPL is promoting a sport. Is cricket an endangered sport in India and whether our IPL missionaries are promoting an endangered sport to get tax exemption? Our Goliath who never played cricket could also threaten to remove from Cricket academy, the cricket icon in India, Kapil Dev, when the latter was supporting Indian Cricket League(not IPL).

In my view, Shashi Tharoor became a casualty in this episode. Mamata tried to make Indian Railway Budget a Bengal Railway Budget, Lalu did the same for Bihar and Maran did the same in Telecom for Tamil Nadu.This is a standard practice because,after all they are elected by the people of their home state and they have to go back to their electorate after 5 years. This practice may be wrong but still it is not illegal. Tharoor did the same. If he had the intention of getting stakes through his friend, he could have done it silently. He openly acknowledged to the media that he is a patron of Kochi franchisee because Kerala is his home state. He supported openly. If he had intentions of misusing his office for getting stakes for his friend Sunanda, then he could have silently done it. Even the Congress feels that Tharoor has done a SILLY BLUNDER which means that Tharoor has become a casualty because he did act silly.One can argue that Tharoor did not promote Railways or Telecom for his State, but it can also be genuine that he could have decided to promote IPL seeing the craziness for this sport. Anyhow since Tharoor was holding a responsible post and there are prima facie doubts about his involvement in alleged transfer of stakes to his friend Sunanda, it’s good that he was removed from the post of Minister. On the other hand Modi who took the moral stand of exposing Tharoor, was a failure in all his business ventures till 3 years before, but has bought a private jet, a luxury yacht , a fleet of Mercedes and BMW cars after he became IPL chairman. Times of India report alleges that Modi’s brother in law Chellaram has stakes in Rajasthan Royals and Modi also has Benami stakes in Kings XI Punjab and Kolkata Knight Riders Teams. Times of India report also claims that IT raids have found Modi’s involvement in IPL betting and money laundering.

Its good that Goliath-David battle took place, not because Goliath may also be killed soon, not because Goliath’s betting scandal has got exposed, but good because some section of MPs in Parliament have started demanding the ban of IPL. Modi who claims that IPL’s aim is to promote cricket across the world, should have not opposed ICL if that was his true intention because ICL was also a league which could have promoted cricket.BCCI actually started IPL to counter ICL and it used all arm twisting activities and removed ICL from the arena and has become the sole proprietor of the Gold mines. Even though cricket is a lazy sport and has spoilt the sponsorships of other games, one thing good about cricket is, it unites the nation. If Rahul Dravid played well, Tamils, Biharis, Bengalis and the entire nation praised the iron man of Karnataka. Similarly if Harbhajan Singh bowled well, the Haryanvis, Kannadigas, Bengalis , Assamese and the entire nation praised the Punjab Tiger. IPL on the other hand has removed the only positive factor in Cricket. It has led to balkanization of Indian Cricket. and India The other day one of my friend was about to cry because 'Chennai Super Kings' lost. I asked him whether Dhoni was from Chennai. He told Dhoni likes Chennai and that’s why he opted for being a player in 'Chennai Super Kings'. He also told that Dhoni out of his love for Chennai, has recently bought a house in Chennai. Nowadays my friend staunchly opposes Sachin, Ganguly etc because they play against Chennai. Some may argue that IPL is equivalent to Foot Ball league and County Cricket of European countries and it has not led balkanization in those countries. Its true for Europe, but India is not Europe where there is single religion and single language.In next few years, the youngsters will start really believing that Dhoni is playing for Chennai out of his love for Chennai and will start fighting with Kannadigas if 'Royal Challengers' win 'Chennai Super Kings', like the way people react when Indo-Pak cricket match takes place.I conclude with the remarks of Geeth Sethi,the Billiard player, who won the first individual Olympic Gold medal for India, “The fanatical obsession called cricket has just joined hands with the film world to create a new pastime (I consciously refrain from calling it a sport) where it will gain even further visibility and media hype fuelled by both cricket and Bollywood,this in turn will almost certainly divert sponsorship which could have gone to disciplines with a genuine chance of winning India that Olympic gold.”