New Delhi: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday threw his weight behind keeping politicians out of sports bodies in the country and said sportspersons themselves should be at the helm of affairs.
"When you are talking about sports and how to make it accessible, then more and more powers should go the sports people when deciding things about sports in the country," Gandhi said at the launch of 'National Youth Policy 2014' and 'Rajiv Gandhi Khel Abhiyan' here.
"I think that's the crux of it. Keep the politicians out of sports if you want to put it directly."
Rahul said it is similar to empowering common man to help change politics in the country.
"The same applies to politics. If you want to change the politics in the country, give more and more power to young people, give more power to the common man and you change the politics," Gandhi added.
National Youth Policy 2014 and Rajiv Gandhi Khel Abhiyan, a Centrally Sponsored Plan Scheme were launched at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here today.
Sports Minister Jitendra Singh, Mary Kom, Vijender Singh, P Gopichand, Ashwini Nachappa, Ronjan Sodhi and Karnam Malleswari were also present on the occasion.
The two programmes were also simultaneously launched at district headquarters and in universities throughout the country.
Reacting to Gandhi's comments, Singh said the politicians should have a limited role to play in the functioning of the sports federations.
"As far as sports politicians are concerned, we know how to fight the elections. But to run sports federations and to train sportspersons, we cannot do it. That can only be done by a professional. But for sports promotion, a politician is a very important figure. So, it is necessary that there should be a limited role of the politician for sports promotion," the minister said.
Replying to a question on whether the sports ministry would come up with any guideline to limit the role of politicians getting into the sports administration, Singh said the National Sports Development Bill makes it mandatory to have certain numbers of sportspersons as office-bearers.
"We have a sports development bill. We have invited suggestions from everybody. The biggest highlight of this bill is that there is a certain reserved place for the post of office bearers which makes it mandatory to have sportspersons in the committee. If there is a 20-member committee, 8-10 people in that committee should mandatorily be sportspersons," he said.
Next: Nachappa wants Rahul's idea to be implemented
Nachappa wants Rahul's idea to be implemented
New Delhi: Former sprinter Ashwini Nachappa on Friday welcomed Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi's call to keep politicians out of sports bodies and said time has come for the sportspersons to assume leadership positions to take Indian sports forward.
"I whole-heartedly support Rahul's view on politicians being kept out of sports bodies. It should be implemented and only sporstpersons should run sports bodies. Politicians are not qualified to run sports bodies.
They can be just figureheads but should not run sports bodies," Nachappa, who was present when Rahul Gandhi made the comments at the launch of 'National Youth Policy 2014' and 'Rajiv Gandhi Khel Abhiyan' programme here, told PTI.
"The politicians should concentrate on working for the betterment of people of their constituencies. We need professionals and those interested in sports and who knows how to run sports bodies. Only then Indian sports can move forward," said Nachappa who is also the head of Clean Sports India, a movement for a corruption-free sports in the country.
"Now that a person of the stature of Rahul Gandhi has said this, I hope there would be some impact on this," said the former sprinter.
Former 'Sprint Queen' P T Usha agreed that politicians should now leave sports bodies to sportspersons.
"We have seen several politicians at the helm of affairs of various sports bodies in the country and there has not been much improvement in the standard of sports in the country. I feel time has come for sportspersons to manage the sports bodies themselves," Usha said.
"Only sportspersons know the difficulties faced by their fellow sportspersons. They have faced the problems themselves and they know how to deal with them. I welcomed what Rahul Gandhi has said. It could be difficult to dislodge politicians from sports bodies but I support Rahul's views," she said.
