Bedi quits DDCA over Jaitley statue

“He should me memorialised in Parliament, not cricket stadium” Fomer India captain

Rohit Mahajan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 22

Former India captain Bishan Singh Bedi has decided to dissociate himself from the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) over its decision to install a statue of the late Arun Jaitley at its stadium.

Bedi, who played for Delhi from 1968 till the end of his First-Class career in 1981, wants the DDCA to remove his name from a stand at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium renamed after Jaitley last year.

Bedi also gave up his membership of the DDCA. In an email to its president Rohan Jaitley, son of Arun Jaitley, he said he wanted to sever ties due to the “unsavoury past and nepotism” during Arun Jaitley’s 14-year reign as DDCA president.

“…Even in your leadership, DDCA’s court culture of fawning obeisance continues,” Bedi wrote. “After Feroz Shah Kotla was (re)named hurriedly and most undeservingly after Arun Jaitley, my reaction then was may be somehow good sense might prevail to keep Kotla sacrosanct… I’m not at all enamoured with the thought of a statue of Arun Jaitley coming up at Kotla.”

The 74-year-old spin bowling legend said he had been told that Jaitley was an “able” politician and therefore, “it’s Parliament and not a cricket stadium that needs to remember him for posterity.”

Talking with The Tribune, he said he had taken the decision on principles, though with a heavy heart. “I’m overwhelmed with the support I’ve received from across the world…Ian Chappell wrote to me, Michael Holding also sent his support.” Bedi said the online support from the younger generation, “too young to know of me as a cricketer,” probably came because “they are not used to seeing people acting on principles.”