Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium

When the so-called stadiums were being rebuilt during the Commonwealth Games, it was told that these structures are going to be there for perpetuity, the idea being to promote sports as a genre in the country. Well, it seems that, as they say, in Hindi Raat gayee baat gayee. Precisely this seems to be the approach to the stadiums that were constructed with so much fanfare and with so much extravagant expenses. Even the government of the day is contemplating to hold its party’s rally in the Talkatora Stadium and as the boxing ring is creating inconvenience, so a decision has been taken to do away with it, as holding a political rally is much more important than maintain a stadium for the variety of sports for which it was set up. this, inspite of the fact that boxing has provided a rich haul for the country and catapulted it to the second position in the overall medal tally.

Delhi University has also decided to do away with the Rugby ground that was created in its campus as it wants to reclaim its original ground which was used for playing cricket. Well, Rahul Bose needs to take up this issue with the Delhi University as he is the most celebrated face associated with the game of Rugby in the country.

In the same manner, it has been observed that the international Kabaddi ground in Ludhiana has been given to the Art of Living Foundation to conduct its programme in November, inspite of the fact that the municipal authorities in Ludhiana did not accord it sanction, then the AOL people approached the political powers and the sanction was handed in a jiffy. This was inspite of the fact that the sports persons had protested vehemently against according such sanction for holding a religious jamboree. The moot point is, if it has been accorded to a class of ideology how can it be denied to other class of ideology.

Incidentally, the show piece of the Commonwealth Games, the Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium was a show piece from the times of Asiad 1982, but as it became a hunting ground for entertainment paraphernalia, country’s first synthetic hockey track went to dogs. And icing of the cake is the contemplation that India should bid for Asian Games of 2019. may be, that being the target, by that time these stadiums would be abused so much by the rallies, that a fresh doze of funds would be requisitioned to re-construct them from scratch.

Tags: Commonwealth Games, Indian Sports, Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium, Sports, Sports India, Stadiums, Talkatora Stadium