Sorry Mr. Vijay Goel, but it's time they sacked you from the Sports Minister job

Ayesha d'Souza

ByAyesha d'Souza, SportsCafe Editor

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What do you do when you set out on a momentous journey after a wait of four years, and expect Gandalf in Grey khadi garb to lead you ahead, but he ends up being only Gimli the dwarf, bumbling and tumbling his way through as two young maidens carry back the Precious.

That is about the only function our honorable Sports Minister Vijay Goel served in India's Olympic dream – pure comic relief. On the other hand, Vijay 'gaffe' Goel's antics and amateur goof-ups ended up only being more depressing after our dreadful show at Rio.

There was a time when this nation boasted of efficient and upright ministers who resigned their positions taking moral responsibility when debacles happened – Lal Bahadur Shastri did so when Independent India had one of its first train accidents. Shastri's hand in that accident is as tenuous as Mr. Goel's contribution in India's Olympic fortunes, and we shall not hold our Sports Minister to that. However, the aforementioned efficiency is something he has sorely, direly, lacked.

It all began when he landed in Rio in the midst of India's epic hunt for a double-digit medal haul. While our hopes dwindled day by day, Shri Goel was busy accosting and taking selfies with athletes from our nation and others, without discrimination. How stopping an Indian boxer who is just out of the ring from a nerve-wracking Olympic pre-quarterfinal bout for one final selfie will encourage him to perform well in the next round is anyone's guess. However, his 'selfie with athletes' campaign ran into serious trouble when the Olympic organizers took offence to him and his entourage ‘rowdying’ around into prohibited areas while in action. An official warning arrived announcing that he will be thrown out if it continues, and suitably rebuked, he spent the rest of the time on the sidelines devoid of any 'netagiri'. Not the best start for India's glittering arrival, but it was fine.

But then our Minister embarked on his next saga – There has been only one man who has consistently and colorfully managed to put foot in mouth in India's history, and Mr. Goel gave him a run for his money over the past month. First, as the nation waited with bated breath for Dipa Karmakar to land her Produnova, he engaged in some astounding verbal gymnastics to name her “Dipa Karmanakar”.

Then, he posted 100m runner Dutee Chand's photo and conveyed his best wishes to 200m runner Srabani Nanda. While he did manage to delete the tweet, the truth that our Sports Minister does not know even the names of our athletes had been proved by then. So much for his need to make his encouraging presence among our athletes.

Even as we thought things had died down, Mr. Goel came up with his best effort yet yesterday. In a stroke of modern alchemy, the Minister changed PV Sindhu and Sakshi Malik into Gold medalists. He also came back with an explanation that India's medals will soon turn into Gold medals, which only made it worse.

However, that as well is not something we shall hold against him – better orators than him have made gaffe after gaffe.

But the Minister, on the same day, had in his own words, “constructive steps for the encouragement & development of sports in India”. Weighty words, but how exactly a retired Bollywood actor whose closest brush with sports has been owning a 'Water Sports park' could help Mr. Goel redesign India's sports culture is a big question. At a time when he should be taking stock on what went wrong at Rio after the peak of London 2012, and come up with a comprehensive plan for the short-term, medium-term, and the long-term for Indian sports, Shri Goel is busy meeting Suniel Shetty for enlightening discussions and feels they are important enough to announce to the world. He has proved to be no better than a twiddling teenager, with a typepad in hand and a Twitter account. Someone in his office should walk over and tell him he sadly also has thousands and thousands of Twitter followers, and that he also has a day-time job other than tweeting about his high teas to the hoi polloi.

While the nation expects its Sports Minister to be busy coming up with a vision and action plan to reach double-digit medals by at least 2024, Mr. Goel has let us down – again and again. Why is it that we are expected to put up with being embarrassed by our netas in foreign lands? Is it too much to expect them to remember the name of the woman who was on the lips of every single Indian for a full week? While still a far shot, is it too much to ask for someone who knows his job to be given the job in this nation? This nation deserves a better kind of Minister, and Mr. Goel needs to make way sooner rather than later. Probably right now would be the best time. As Milkha Singh suggested, why not give Olympic silver-medalist and MP from the ruling party, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, a shot at taking India out of the dumps we have found ourselves in? Even if he does not get us to 10 medals by 2020, he cannot do worse than Mr. Goel, can he?

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