New Delhi: Former Indian captain Bishan Singh Bedi has written a letter to Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) President Rohan Jaitley requesting his name to be removed from the spectator stand at the capital’s Arun Jaitley Stadium and also from the primary membership of DDCA has resigned.
Bedi has written to Jaitley demanding this. The letter is written at a time when it has been decided to install the statue of former DDCA President Late Arun Jaitley in the stadium. In 2017 itself, a stand of Arun Jaitley Stadium was named after former left arm spinner Bedi. But since this letter, once again the internal controversy of DDCA has come to light.
“After the Feroze Shah Kotla was named hurriedly and most undeservingly after Late Arun Jaitley my reaction then was maybe somehow good sense might prevail to keep Kotla sacrosanct. How wrong I was. Now I gather a statue of Late Arun Jaitley is going to be installed at the Kotla.I’m not at all enamoured with the thought of a statue of Arun Jaitley coming up at Kotla. I pride myself as a man of immense tolerance and patience..but all that I’m afraid is running out.DDCA has truly tested me and forced me to take this drastic action. So, Mr President I request you to remove my name from the stand named after me with immediate effect. Also, I hereby renounce my DDCA membership,” Bishan Singh Bedi wrote in the letter.
Further in the letter, Bishan Singh Bedi highlighted, “Late Arun Jaitley I’m told was an able politician. So its the Parliament & not a cricket stadium which needs to remember him for posterity. He might have been a good cricket fan too, but his dillance with cricket administration was dubious & left much to desired. This is not a rhetorical assessment but a factual appraisal of his time at DDCA.Take my word, failures don’t need to be celebrated with plaques and busts. They need to be forgotten.”
