97% say Commonwealth Games bosses have tarred India's image: Poll

Those responsible for the Commonwealth Games mess often blame the media for "overhyping" the situation, and argue that it does not truly reflect public sentiment. So we decided to ask our readers themselves what they thought. We did a quick online poll on Wednesday afternoon. And frankly, the sheer volume of the responses and the depth of the public outrage against the miscarriage of responsibility by the Organizing Committee and government officials surpassed our assessment.

Within eight hours of the questionnaire being put on the TOI website, over 17,500 people had voted - a huge response, even by the numbers online polls attract. (Commissioned surveys typically poll a few hundred.) And we hadn't made a prior announcement of the poll in the newspaper or on the website.
An overwhelming 97% of respondents believed that the Union and Delhi governments and the OC had tarnished the image of the country.

Our poll also posed a basic question: Did it make sense for India to have bid for the Games? No, said 59% of respondents. This, in fact, was the mildest expression of anger by the readers.

Even if you disregard OC chairman Suresh Kalmadi's boast that the Games would be the best ever and would have better infrastructure than the Beijing Olympics, you still hear many in government and the OC claiming that "minor" incidents like a bridge collapse or ceiling collapse won't affect the games. But the public certainly does not think so. As many as 73% of the respondents felt that the situation was so grave it could no longer be salvaged.

Kalmadi may not be the person to blame for everything that has gone wrong with India's preparation to host the Games, but public anger against him runs deep. In fact, it has become viral - on Wednesday, he was the protagonist of many SMS jokes, most of them unprintable.