(Image source from: How BCCI can help Indian IPL players vote in Lok Sabha elections?})

The news of retired cricketer Sachin Tendulkar taking a break from the IPL and returning to India to cast vote yesterday drew large press. While the nation and media couldn't stop going gaga over the Little Master's and the sitting MP in Rajya Sabha's sense of deep responsibility towards nation, the big question is what happened to the rest of the IPL Indian players? Wasn't it their rightful duty to cast vote?

As the first 20 matches of the India’s richest and glitziest sports league had to be moved to the UAE as Indian government failed to offer any security for matches during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BCCI decided to move the tournament before during a national election. And by doing so, it essentially disenfranchised every single Indian player who is part of the IPL.

The BCCI too had no choice but to accommodate the IPL in May and June because this is the only window in the global cricket calendar big enough for it. It would be difficult to host the tournament of this magnitude at any other time of the year. Yet the system should not allow the board to do away with this, more so when a solution is not hard to find.

With as many as seven voting days remaining before the IPL comes home in May, the least the world’s richest cricket body can do is to accommodate those dates and allow players to fly home to vote.

Yes, doing so would mean more matches at 4 pm and lower TV ratings, but that is a rather small price to pay to allow money minters aka the players participate in world’s largest democratic exercise.

Given the bad press the board has drawn in recent times, offering to fund the players who wanted to vote could garner it a pat on the back. It would have also shown that the board cares about events and interests beyond itself and is willing to consider interests beyond its own bottom line. The franchises could also shoulder some of the responsibility here too.

AW: Suchorita Choudhury