Government ignored Dutt's contention, gave go ahead to CWG OC

NEW DELHI: The Congress-led UPA government had ratified the structure of the CWG Organising Committee despite its own Sports Minister having reservations about it, documents have revealed.

In May 2005, the then Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh had forwarded a list of "eminent persons", who would form part of the OC, to the then Sports Minister Sunil Dutt, saying that he "approves the names in the list". The list was sent to him by Suresh Kalmadi for approval.

The list mentioned the now-jailed Kalmadi as the Chairman of the Organising Committee while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi were made chief Patrons.

According to the list, Arjun himself was mentioned as one of the eight Patrons, including Dutt, Leader of opposition L K Advani, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Home Minister Shivraj Patil, External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, Agricuture Minister Sharad Pawar and Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

However, in 2004, when the OC structure was to be finalised, Dutt had written to the Prime Minister saying he was surprised by the Indian Olympic Association resolution appointing its chief Kalmadi as Chairman of the OC, saying it was "at variance" with the decision of the GoM.

He had claimed that IOA was "aware" that GoM had agreed to appoint Sports Minister as OC Chairman for preparation of conduct and preparation of the Games.

Dutt had alleged that minutes of group of ministers meeting issued by Cabinet Secretariat do not reflect the decisions taken during the meeting on "various aspects of composition of Organising Committee".

The notes made on the letter mention "PM has seen" and later an acknowledgement was also sent to Dutt by the Prime Minister.