Despite all the publicity, both positive and adverse, the organizers of the second Indian Premier League (IPL) are making a tremendous effort to get the Twenty20 cricket carnival on course, as originally scheduled. But from all indications, the whole issue of mobilization of resources for security is still in a nebulous state.
Lalit Modi, whose brainchild the IPL is and who is its commissioner, must be applauded for working gallantly and almost single-handedly to make the tournament's second edition as successful as the first one was. He has had to overcome several hurdles in terms of greater security demands and a personal setback in as much as he lost the presidential elections to the Rajasthan Cricket Association, the unit which he represents on the BCCI.
Now, once again, elections are his biggest problem for him. India will be having the general elections at the same time that IPL matches are scheduled to be played across the country. As it is, the biggest exercise in electioneering and casting of votes will stretch the country's security set-up to the limit. It would be too much to expect it to carry the extra burden of providing security for a total of 59 day-night matches in eight different states by turns.
In India, law and order is a state subject and each of the eleven match centers will have to draw personnel from the state's resources. But the crux of the matter is that the states will need their own forces for maintaining law and order during the run-up to the elections.
Therefore, a new schedule had to be drawn to preclude holding of matches on the day of polling at that center. At the time of writing, only three states had given their willingness to providing the best security cover during the matches there. Five more states are still contemplating on taking over the responsibility. According to Modi, they will do so soon.
Modi sounded confident that the security will be ten times tighter than what was put together when the England team played a couple of Test matches after the 26/11 incident in Mumbai. But one must remember that at that time, there was just one-off match at a time and at one place. For the IPL, the circus is going to be constantly on the move with two matches at two different venues on one day.
The prevailing situation still falls short of the expected confidence-building measures amongst the stake-holders, the sponsors. franchises, the officials, the players and of course the spectators, who will be thronging the stadia. With less than a month to go to the opening of the tournament, a lot remains to be done, not just in terms of organization, but in terms of making everyone feel comfortably drawn to what is otherwise considered to be the biggest cricket event of its kind anywhere.