SAF Badminton row: State flexes muscle

SHILLONG, JAN 7: Flexing its muscle, Meghalaya government has confirmed its decision to withdraw from co-hosting the 12 South Asian Games if the badminton discipline is to be shifted to Guwahati.

Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma on Thursday warned that the state will withdraw from being a co-host if the badminton discipline is shifted to Guwahati. He also informed that the cabinet was briefed on the issue including the official communication that was sent to the union government yesterday about the stand of the state government.

“We stand firmly by our decision and look forward for the response from all concerns so that course correction is taken by all concerned and ensure a successful hosting of this mega event involving the people of both the states,” Sangma said.

Sangma said the state government had informed the union government that the decision that Meghalaya and Assam will co-hosts the game was agreed after due consultation.

Sangma said, “We have made our stand very clear in terms of our displeasure and communicated them appropriately to all concern,” he said adding “We believe that any action to reverse a decision which was frozen should not be done without taking into confidence the state concerned because state has definitely put its effort in ensuring a successful hosting of this mega event.”

According to Sangma, the state had taken lots of joint exercise with all concern to appropriately auditing the existing infrastructure from technical perspective and based on which disciplines could be hosted and in which state was also discussed and accordingly decision was taken.

“This whole exercise culminated in freezing the decision to host out of the total 23, 8 disciplines in Shillong and 15 in Guwahati after a long drawn professional and technical auditing of existing infrastructure,” Sangma reiterated adding that out of these eight disciplines Badminton was one of the disciplines  slated to be hosted in Shillong.

Sangma said the Meghalaya government was of the opinion that the recent development of shifting the Badminton to Guwahati was mainly because of politicking that led to this very unfortunate situation that too without taking the state government into consideration by the technical committee and the Indian Olympic Association.

Sangma said the state government wants to question if the technical committee was responsible in physically auditing all the existing infrastructures which culminated in freezing of the decision in hosting this discipline and now what has made the committee to realize that any of the existing infrastructure is not suitable to host of any of the discipline that were frozen.

According to Sangma, the shifting decision indicates it is an afterthought maneuver to suit their unpleasant politicking while hosting such an important international event which also is linked to the prestige of the nation and the region.-By Our Reporter