New Delhi, Mar 16: BCCI secretary Jay Shah on Saturday dismissed speculation that the IPL would be shifted to the UAE due to the upcoming general elections in the country between April 19 to June 1.
There were endless rumours about the IPL being shifted to the Emirates due to the elections which will be held in seven phases with the reports filling social media about players being asked to deposit their passports with respective franchises.
However, Shah set the record straight.
"The entire IPL will be held in India. We will be formulating the remaining schedule very soon and announce it," Shah told PTI.
The schedule for the first two weeks has been already released with defending champions Chennai Super Kings taking on Royal Challengers Bangalore at home on March 22.
In earlier conversations with PTI, BCCI secretary Shah had categorically maintained that the full tournament will be held in India, just like it happened in 2019, the year of previous Lok Sabha election. They were only waiting for the Election Commission to announce the poll dates.
In the morning, IPL chairman Arun Dhumal had also said there was no chance of shifting the IPL out of the country and all the reports of the tournament being held in UAE were baseless.
However, the league was moved out of the country during the general elections in 2014 when the UPA government was in power. Then the first phase was held in the UAE before returning to India for the second phase.
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Mumbai (PTI): Social activist Anna Hazare has said Raghav Chadha and six other Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Rajya Sabha members would not have quit the party had it followed the "right" path.
"Everyone has the right to hold an opinion in a democracy. They (Chadha and others) must have faced some trouble, which is why they left," Hazare told reporters on Friday in Ahilyanagar district of Maharashtra.
AAP Rajya Sabha members Raghav Chadha and Sandeep Pathak addressed a joint press conference in Delhi on Friday, announcing their exit from the Arvind Kejriwal-led party to join the BJP.
Chadha claimed that nearly two-thirds of AAP's Rajya Sabha members had quit the party and would function as a separate faction.
"It is their (AAP leadership’s) fault. Had that party followed the right way, they would not have left," Hazare said.
Hazare reiterated that Chadha and others must have faced difficulties within AAP, and that is why they left. "Had the party gone in the right direction, they would not have quit the party," he added.
"There must be some or the other reason (for their leaving AAP). In a democracy, every person has a view about where to stay and leave," Hazare said.
The Chadha-led exodus marks a significant setback for the Kejriwal-led party since its formation in 2012, which followed the momentum of Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement.
