If politicians can run the country, they can run sport bodies: Thakur
Shillong, June 1: Board of Cricket for Control of India (BCCI) President Anurag Thakur asserted on Wednesday that politicians have the ability to head various tiol sports bodies in the country.
The 41-year-old three-time Lok Sabha member from Hamripur in Himachal Pradesh was responding to a jourlist’s call for his comment on politicians heading various sports bodies in India.
“If politicians can run the country, they can run the sport bodies also,” Thakur told reporters here.
“One should appreciate the hard work done by them. I was a cricketer first, then sports administrator later, then I became a politician. That does not disqualify me for becoming sports administrator. So they have contributed in creating infrastructure and that (politicians heading sports bodies) helps,” he added.
Thakur also pointed out that elections are held to state sports bodies and players also contest the polls and get elected.
He added that big mes like former India leg-spinner Anil Kumble and former India captain Sourav Ganguly, among others, were part of the cricket associations in their respective states.
“I have come from sports to politics but, sports not really is the gateway to politics. If it is the gateway also, there’s nothing in that because politics also is a platform to work for the country,” Thakur said.
Meanwhile, Ignored for the past many years, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has filly woken up to the country’s northeast. It is mulling to form a combined northeast team, which will participate in all tiol-level tourments conducted by the board across all age groups.
Newly elected BCCI President Anurag Thakur, who visited the Under-16 and Under-19 BCCI-tiol Cricket Academy (NCA) camps in Dimapur (Tuesday) and Shillong on Wednesday, said the board is also planning to set up a cricket ground and an indoor cricket facility in all the northeastern states.
Giving a timeline, he said that as president he wants to lay the foundation of the indoor cricket academy within three months and iugurate it in the next 12 months.
Thakur, who was accompanied by BCCI’s new area development programme chairman Avishek Dalmiya and other officials, said: “The BCCI is committed to handhold northeastern states and bring them to the mainstream. I am extremely happy with the two camps organised by the BCCI at Shillong and Dimapur.” (IANS and a correspondent)
