Opposition to India-Pakistan World T20 match at Dharamshala gets louder
India played their last match at Dharamshala against South Africa on October 2, 2015.(Source: File)
The voices to “call off” India-Pakistan World T20 fixture at Dharamshala are getting louder as transport minister GS Bali on Thursday gave a 10-day ultimatum to either scrap the match or shift it to some other venue.
Addressing a press conference, transport minister GS Bali, who was also joined by three chief parliamentary secretaries –Rakesh Dharmani, Rohit Thakur and Solan Lal, said, “Anurag Thakur, who is BCCI secretary and HPCA president, should choose if he wants to go ahead with a commercial venture of holding the match or honour the sentiments of the families of the martyrs, two of them being Pathankot attack heroes.”
Bali added that if the Indian cricket board didn’t take a decision soon, course of action to stop the match would be announced.
On Wednesday, Bali had tried to mobilise the support of Congress MLAs at meeting of the legislature party where he asked the chief minister Virbhadra Singh to get the match cancelled otherwise the protests will grow.
Virbhadra is on the same page and was convinced that hosting the match would be a wrong decision. As far as Thakur’s suggestions to invite the CM for ticket launch was concerned, Virbhadra said,” he thinks that CM’s status is as low as to launch a ticket counter”.
Despite the growing protests, Thakur had made it clear that the match would proceed as per schedule.
