New Delhi:
Just how Suresh Kalmadi became the man in charge of organising the Commonwealth Games in India has become India's latest whodunit. Documents with NDTV show how Suresh Kalmadi misled both the NDA and UPA governments to take control of the Organising Committee of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
(See: Letters from Sports Ministers to Prime Minister against Kalmadi) In its 1900-page report the Shunglu Committee cites many instances of Mr Kalmadi's malpractices.
For instance, during the NDA regime in 2003, Mr Kalmadi spent Rs 32 crore as gifts to foreign sports federations. When confronted by the then Sports Minister Vikram Verma, Mr Kalmadi allegedly claimed it has been cleared by the then Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee.
Mr Kalmadi says the Prime Minister cleared the payment on phone. Mr Verma says such claims are completely incorrect.
As Chairman of the OC, Mr Kalmadi led a team of men whose biggest trademark became bare-faced corruption. He was arrested in April.
NDTV has found that a report by the government's auditor blames the Prime Minister's Office for Mr Kalmadi's elevation to head of the committee that stole crores from the country. "In our opinion, the decision of the PMO for appointing Suresh Kalmadi as Chairman of the OC facilitated the conversion of the originally envisaged government-owned OC into a body effectively outside the government control," writes the Comptroller and Auditor General.
Last week, in the Lok Sabha, Mr Maken presented the government's view of what transpired - that when Dr Manmohan Singh's government was voted into power in 2004, the paperwork that had been signed by the Vajpayee government for the Games ensured that Mr Kalmadi would rule the Commonwealth roost.
But the BJP tells a remarkably different story. Vikram Verma, who was the Sports Minister in 2003 when India bid for and won the rights to host the Games, says that the contract always stated that the Organising Committee would be led by a government nominee, intended to be the Sports Minister. It was tampered with, he says, to delete the reference to the "government nominee."
Even today, India's bid documents on the official Games site show Mr Kalmadi as Vice-Chairman. The government's auditor, the Comptroller and Auditor General states, "In our opinion the primary objective of the document titled as the 'updated bid' was to orchestrate the appointment of the president of the IOA, Suresh Kalmadi, as the chairman of the OC executive board; since as per the May 2003 bid document, the President of the IOA would only be the Vice Chairman."
As the UPA tries to deflect the blame, there appears to be several holes in its explanation. For example, a Group of Ministers met in October 2004 and decided Sunil Dutt, who was Sports Minister at the time, would head the Organising Committee. This decision was reversed within days in favour of Mr Kalmadi. An upset Mr Dutt wrote to the Prime Minister to officially protest. In December, however, the Prime Minister's Office ratified Kalmadi's chairmanship.
The UPA has also been left somewhat exposed by letters written to the Prime Minister's Office by Mani Shankar Aiyar, who replaced Mr Dutt as Sports Minister. In 2007, Mr Aiyar warned that under Mr Kalmadi's stewardship, the Organising Committee was indulging in financial malpractices. There was no action taken.