Turning pitch: Akalis hard sell sports glory ahead of polls but nobody is playing along

Partisan sport

As for the distribution of kits, mostly for cricket and volleyball, youngsters said it was just a ploy by the ruling party to scout for manpower. "These kits are distributed through panchayats with political motives. The government might have created infrastructure at the top level, but at lower levels, things are pretty bad. They do not realise that it is at lower levels where talent has to be identified and nurtured," said Sona Singh, a student leader from Muktsar.

He went on, "As the election approaches, the government is just keen to use sportsmen for political gain. Look at the ads in cinema halls where they have got hockey player Raj Pal to endorse their political line that there is no drug problem in Punjab and that the state is being defamed by people with vested interests. The way the Akalis hosted Kabaddi World Cups made one feel they were reliving the Spartan era."

Others claimed that sports equipment and infrastructure has been distributed in a partisan manner. "One, they have only doled out cricket kits and ignored other sports. Two, the kits have only gone to villages supporting the Akalis," said Manpreet Singh, a heavyweight boxer from Sarvar Khuiya village in Abohar.

Manpreet said only after joining Panjab University did he get proper equipment to train and play although special diet was still an issue. "Until Plus Two, we build our stamina only by running. In the government-aided college where I studied, I was just given the colours to wear while gloves, guards and shoes were procured at individual level. This cannot be called providing facilities to sportsmen."

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Gurdit Singh Sekhon, a national basketball player who was recently declared as the AAP's candidate from Faridkot, told Catch, "Where there are players, there are no coaches. Where there are coaches, there's no infrastructure. This is the situation in Punjab. People are funding their children opting for sports from their own resources. There is absolutely no planning at the governmental level and no effort is being made to search for talent."

He recalled that in 2002, Sukhbir Badal visited Faridkot for the prestigious Baba Farid Basketball Gold Cup tournament and "made tall promises to provide basketball infrastructure matching that in the United States". "Since then he has done nothing," Sekhon said. "The new court that has come up was built with the grant provided by AAP MP Prof Sadhu Singh. The sports wings at various places that used to be the pride of Punjab have all crumbled because of neglect by this government."

No strategic vision

Sekhon claimed that if only half of Punjab's sports budget was properly used, "the State can produce several international players in various sports".

Former Olympian Pargat Singh, the suspended Akali legislator, had a broader take on the issue. He pointed out that sport across India needed to be seen in a fresh perspective. "It takes 10-15 years to groom a sportsman during which time he has to pass through various phases in the system. We don't have a base for sports and neither is there any effort to build one. There is no quantity, quality or super-quality. It is all linked. From a large quantity of playerswe choose quality from which we develop super quality," he explained.

Pargat pointed out Punjab has 4,600 physical education instructors but most of them have taken to blackboards instead of the field. There is a need for policy intervention, he said, along the lines of what he tried to do as Director, Sports, till 2012. "There are no technical hands. The department is headed by a civil service officer who has nothing to do with sports. This government has no doubt created infrastructure but its maximum usage needs to be ensured," Pargat told Catch.

While the Akalis are hard selling their sports "achievements", their rivals are promising the world to sportspersons. AAP, with a posse of sportspersons in its ranks, has long been talking of promoting sports if it's voted to power. The Congress, too, has joined in with state president Amarinder Singh promising to "evolve a long term sports policy".

"We will not only reward athletes after winning medals, we will provide them the best of facilities beforehand so they are able to perform to their best and win medals," Amarinder recently told a group of sportspersons on National Sports Day.

Referring to India's poor showing at the Rio Olympics, he said, "Olympian expectations should be matched with Olympian support and facilities. It was wrong and unjustified to expect the athletes to win medals when they were not being provided with the required facilities."

Attacking the Akali regime, Amarinder said Punjab's youth have "special potential which needs to be utilised", but "with the Badals at the helm, our potential athletes have been trapped in drugs and we do not have enough youth who qualify for recruitment in the armed forces, forget Olympics."

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