Kalmadi's hot chai diplomacy

Contrary to media reports that the visiting Commonwealth Games Federation chief Michael Fennell gave a cold shoulder to the IOA chief, the two met over a cuppa

Suresh Kalmadi is no Barack Obama, but as the chief of the Organising Committee of the 2010 Commonwealth Games he requires an equal amount of headache pills, if not more.

But in a rude shock to all those who doubted his credentials to manage an event like the Commonwealth Games, Kalmadi managed to win support from the visiting Commonwealth Games Federation chief Michael Fennell.

While the media was busy speculating about his absence from several games venues that Fennell visited on Wednesday, nobody knew that Kalmadi had already met him over a cup of tea.

Rumour mills worked over time the whole day on Wednesday as Kalmadi's foe-turned-friend CGF CEO Mike Hooper accompanied his boss to all the games venues for inspection.

"Fennell's first engagement of the day was a very confidential meeting with Suresh Kalmadi. It was a one-on-one meeting over tea," said a highly-placed source in the Organising Committee.

With a number of corruption cases surfacing and the under preparedness for the mega sporting event making headlines, everyone was keeping a close watch over the meeting between the two.

The sources confirmed that Fennell assured his full support to the IOA and Organising Committee chief. He assured him that he would take up the matters relating to missing deadlines for Games projects and alleged use of sub-standard material by the contractors with the state and central governments.

Fennell began his inspection tour with the netball venue at Thyagaraj Stadium in south Delhi and then went straight to the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies. The CGF chief, accompanied by Hooper, also visited Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium, Indira Gandhi Stadium and the Games Village.

During his two-day visit, Fennell is scheduled to meet Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, Urban Development Minister S Jaipal Reddy and hold a meeting of the Organising Committee's executive board.

Media were kept at bay throughout the day and the OC did not issue any official statement about his visit till the end of the day. During his visit to the Capital in March earlier this year, Fennell had said that he was satisfied with preparations but with just 44 days to go for the Games, it remains to be seen how he reacts this time round.

He was also very concerned after a spate of corruption charges were leveled on the organising committee, especially its chairman Suresh Kalmadi and the CGF chief is expected to seek a lot of answers from the OC in this regard.

Fennell and Hooper came under the scanner themselvesu00a0 when a CAG report claimed that they had played a part in finalisation of a few deals related to the Games but Hooper had later denied any wrongdoing.

NERVOUS SHEILA
With just 45 days left for the Commonwealth Games and many key projects yet to be completed, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said on Wednesday night she was still "nervous" about the preparations.
"It is normal to be nervous till completion of all the works related to the event," Dikshit said when asked whether she was still nervous about the Games. She said some works have been affected due to rains in the last few days. Dikshit also took a pot shot at the media for portraying a negative picture of the preparations.
"If you find something wrong then you keep showing them repeatedly," she said, pointing towards the electronic media. Dikshit has been under attack from various quarters for the delay in completion of key projects. Delhi government had undertaken projects worth over Rs 16,000 crore to enhance infrastructure in the city.

Yet another fiasco

A TV channel on Wednesday claimed that original bid documents submitted by the OC to 72 countries of the Commonwealth in 2003 were tampered with. The channel claimed that it has found discrepancies between the bid documents available to the public through the CWG Federation website and the ones currently lying with the Sports Ministry. In the original bid cleared by the Vajpayee Administration in 2003, the Chairman of the CWG OC was to have been nominated by the government, while the IOA president's position was to be that of Vice Chairman. the OC. However, in the updated bid copy, terms like 'government nominee' and 'IOA President' were removed, thus enabling Suresh Kalmadi to become the OC Chairman when the Committee was finally set up on February 10, 2005. Just who authorized the change? In December 2003, Vikram Verma of the BJP was the sports minister. When shown the document, he expressed shock, saying that it was clear that the bid had been tampered with. "An enquiry should be conducted," he said.

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