Agencies/New Delhi


Suresh Kalmadi arrives at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) office in New Delhi for questioning.  After several hours of questioning, the chief organiser of the Delhi Commonwealth Games was arrested on fraud charges
Police yesterday arrested the chief organiser of the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games and are set to charge him after a probe into allegations of widespread corruption at the scandal-tainted event.
Suresh Kalmadi will be “produced before a special judge” today and formally charged on several conspiracy counts relating to the awarding of commercial contracts, said Dharini Mishra, spokeswoman for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
A member of parliament for the ruling Congress Party, Kalmadi was sacked as chairman of the Games Organising Committee as police investigated charges that the organisers had manipulated tenders and knowingly inflated costs.
The Games were meant to showcase India’s status as an emerging global power, but the sporting headlines were stolen by venue delays, shoddy construction and budget overruns that saw the cost of the event triple to $6bn.
After the Games ended, corruption allegations began to swirl around Kalmadi and his committee.
Mishra cited specific charges that organising officials had conspired to ensure a contract for a private Swiss firm to be the event’s official timekeeper by “wrongfully restricting and eliminating competition from other suppliers in a premeditated manner.”
Other charges related to contracts awarded for a 2009 ceremony in London to mark the start of the baton rally, which saw a Games baton travel across participating nations.
A CBI team recently visited London to probe allegations that at least one London-based firm was paid vast sums of money to provide basic services such as taxis and large television monitors.
Kalmadi was arrested after nearly day-long questioning by the CBI at its headquarters here.
Also arrested yesterday were two more officials of the Games panel, Sujit Lal and A S V Prasad. Lal was deputy director general and Prasad was joint director general in the committee.
This brings to 13 the number of past and present Organising Ccommittee officials who have been arrested. Among them are Lalit Bhanot, a former secretary general of the Organising Committee, and V K Verma, who was its director general. The other officials are T S Darbari, Sanjay Mohindroo, M Jayachandran, Shekhar Deorukhkar, K Udai Kumar Reddy, Binu Nanu, Sandeep Wadhwa and Praveen Bakshi.
Kalmadi, a 66-year-old former air force pilot with powerful political connections, has consistently protested his innocence in the face of fierce attacks from the media and political critics.
He was booed at the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games after becoming the public face for the organisational fiasco that caused India acute embarrassment on the international stage.
India’s national anti-corruption watchdog, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), received complaints alleging up to $1.8bn of Games money was misappropriated.
An initial report by the CVC into the Games confirmed the use of substandard construction materials in a host of building contracts and deliberate cost overruns.
The case is politically sensitive because of Kalmadi’s membership of the Congress Party which is already fighting corruption scandals on numerous fronts.
Kalmadi was stripped of his senior position as a secretary of the party last November, but he still represents Congress in his home constituency of Pune in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament.
As well as his political connections, Kalmadi is influential in sporting circles.
He served as head of the Athletics Federation of India from 1989 to 2006 and has been president of the Indian Olympic Association since 1996.
“This is an embarrassment for Congress. They have been trying to avert it for as long as possible, and now they will try to confine the damage to Kalmadi, who now seems to be seen as dispensable,” former magazine editor Swapan Dasgupta said.
“I am sceptical they will be able to contain the damage.”
The Congress denied the opposition charge that there had been a delay in prosecuting the accused or anyone was being shielded.
Party spokesman Manish Tewari said: “The government has let the law take its own course. It has showed sensitivity to the issue in direct contrast to the BJP.”
On expected lines, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) welcomed the arrests but said it was too late.
“He (Kalmadi) is only the tip of the ice berg,” BJP chief Nitin Gadkari told reporters.
BJP leader Prakash Javadekar demanded action “against Delhi Chief Minister (Sheila Dikshit) and other senior bureaucrats involved in the loot.”
Communist Party of India (Marxist) also reacted similarly. “Why they have not taken action against the big people involved,” Brinda Karat asked.
Dikshit, whose government oversaw the infrastructure development related to the Games, refused to comment.