So finally we have a winner in the "IPL bada ya Elections" battle and it's not the IPL,thankfully.In the aftermath of the terrifying attack on the Srilankan cricketers in Lahore,cricket in the subcontinent has woken up to the reality of water tight security arrangements.IPL being the high profile megabucks showpiece event that it is,must have surely been on the radar of all those rogue outfits.
It's all very fascinating to point fingers at the Pakistani establishment(s) for the unforgivable debacle and in a hollier than thou tone condemning the lack of governance in that country which led to the scene in the Gadaffi stadium where a helicopter airlifted the Lankans as if they were trapped in a warzone.But it will be absolutely naive of us to imagine that such a thing would have never happened in one of our cities.After Mumbai,anything is possible.We can't control what's happening in Pakistan(not until Bharat Mata grows as big and powerful as Uncle Sam and even then not so much) but we can certainly prevent any more spine chilling terror attacks on our soil.
As we all know the internal security establishment in our country is overloaded to say the least.Hence distributing the police forces adequately among the polling booths which are situated in locations with varrying concerns like Maoist insurgency,sectarian violence & Booth rigging and a dozen cricket stadiums with tens of thousands of spectators each along with all the big names in world cricket was never going to be possible.The problem with IPL sadly is it can't be rescheduled due to the constarints of the international cricket calendar and as much as Lalit Modi would have wished the Election Commision didn't consult him while finalizing the dates of polling.So in my opinion there was no debate to begin with.
Now some might argue that in this election season there were political forces behind all this drama which is very much possible taking into account the number of dollar eyed political bigwigs involved in running the BCCI and the state cricket boards.It didn't take long for BJP leaders like Jaitley and Modi to lambast the government for the improper handling of the issue which in their words resulted in tainting India's image from a security viewpoint and equalling us with the lawlessness of Pakistan.The only word which comes to my mind when I hear all this is preposterous.It was a sensible decision and the opposition should understand that in such critical times nothing should be taken for granted.And after all it's just the IPL not the Olympics or anything of that sort.
This might also be construed as playing straight into the hands of the terrorists but I feel as the West has accepted the fact that pre-emption is the most potent weapon to thwart terror attacks and certain sacrifices are necessary to maintain law and order in this age of suicide bombings and mindless killings,we should also assert our proirities and stop exagerrating.
