Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo and Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar met Shiv Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray tonight and urged the latter to withdraw the Sena threat to the participation of Australian cricketers in the coming Indian Premier League (IPL).
“Pawar, president of the Mumbai Cricket Association, asked Thackeray not to oppose Australian players in IPL,” Sena sources said after the meeting here.
The 84-year-old Sena chief has agreed to consider the “request” after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) makes a presentation on IPL format and the number of Aussie players taking part.
Pawar was accompanied by BCCI President Shashank Manohar during his visit to Thackeray’s residence ‘Matoshree’ in suburban Bandra. Sena executive president and Bal Thackeray’s son Uddhav was also present.
“Bal Thackeray and he gave us a considerate hearing. We tried to convince him that only one or two Australian players will participate in the IPL matches and by not allowing all IPL matches it’s the state players (Marathi players) who will lose ultimately,” Manohar told reporters after the meeting.
“Thackeray has asked for a detailed presentation on the issue which we will be providing in a couple of days and thereafter he would consider our request,” he added.
The meeting has created ripples in state political circles, as both the NCP and Shiv Sena are in an uneasy partnership with their respective allies — the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
But NCP spokesman S P Tripathi said no political significance be attached to the meeting.
“The meeting, in many ways, sent a signal that neither the Congress nor the BJP can take their allies for granted,” a senior NCP leader said.
Pawar, a former BCCI chief, said in Aurangabad earlier in the day that he would appeal to Thackeray not to bring politics into sports in the backdrop of the Sena’s opposition to allow Pakistani and Australian players in the IPL in the wake of attacks on Indian nationals in Australia and rising insurgency in India-Pakistan border areas.
