Legalising betting in sports worse idea: Congress
New Delhi, July 6: Dubbing betting in sports a worse idea, the Congress on Friday said the Law Commission's recommendation for such a step will turn every shop selling betel leaves into a gambling den.
"Gambling is a bad idea; gambling in sports is a worse idea. And between a bad and a worse idea, I don't think any choice can be made," Congress Spokesperson Manish Tewari told reporters here.
"If you legalise betting in sports, you will not only spoil the sports but also turn every 'paan ki dukaan' into a 'juye ka adda'. Does the Modi government want to turn every paan shop in the country into a den for gambling?" he asked.
Tewari's comments a day after the Law Commission in its report recommended that betting in sports, including cricket, should be legalised.
The Commission also recommended that Parliament may also enact a model law for regulating gambling that may be adopted by the states or in the alternative, Parliament may legislate in exercise of its powers under Articles 249 or 252 of the Constitution.
The panel said that gambling/betting be made taxable and could be used to attract foreign direct investment.
"If betting were such a kosher and exalted social activity which could qualify as a virtue, then a substantive number of Indian states would not have banned it," Tewari, a former Union Minister said.
He said that the fact is that betting, whether it is through lottery or other means, had had certain very very negative impacts on Indian society.
"It has impoverished families, it has ruined them, and brought about destitution. There is enough empirical evidence which bears out this reality. We believe that betting will subvert Indian sports, it will create more problems of the kind that we have seen with regard to match-fixing etc," the Congress leader said.
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Confident we are going to win Kerala: Shashi Tharoor
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday expressed confidence in the victory of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, saying the Congress-led alliance will win more than 75 seats out of the total 140 in the state.
Tharoor, who hails from Kerala, said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls, most of which predicted a victory for the UDF that has been out of power for 10 years in the state.
"We have been on the ground. I have campaigned in 59 constituencies across 12 districts out of 14. I was very confident we are going to win.
"Everything that I have picked up from not just my party colleagues and workers but also from other observers, media and others have always convinced me that we were going to score a comfortable win of above 75 seats. And all the (exit) polls have confirmed the same thing," he told reporters here.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls but in general he was not a big fan of exit polls in India.
"Because ours is not purely a homogenous society. We have to take into account gender issue, caste issue, class issue, regional disparities. You never get a convincingly large enough sample to give an accurate poll and now there is the additional complication that we have heard about in West Bengal this year that many people are unwilling to answer the questions of the pollsters," he said.
The Congress leader said normally, it used to be below 10 per cent that people said that they would not answer.
"Even if you are a reputable exit pollster, in Bengal, one polling company has said 60 per cent of people refused to answer. So, what is the worth of a poll where 60 per cent of your respondents have not answered," he said.
Several exit polls on Wednesday predicted a comeback by the Congress-led UDF in Kerala after 10 years, dethroning the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF).
Polling for the 140-member Kerala assembly was held on April 9. Results of assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Puducherry, besides Kerala, will be announced on May 4.
