Early last week, former Union Minister Suresh Kalmadi passed away in his hometown Pune. Though rooted in Maharashtra politics and known largely for his involvement in sports administration, Kalmadi’s name remains inseparable from a defining chapter in the political history of the national capital: the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
As head of the organising body, Kalmadi presided over India’s most ambitious sporting event. The stakes were enormous. Delhi was being remade with new roads, flyovers, upgraded stadiums, transport links and civic amenities. The Games, despite their largely smooth organisation and the massive legacy of sports and urban infrastructure they created, quickly became engulfed in controversy. That controversy, in hindsight, would shape politics and governance in Delhi for years to come.
Few voices expressed this more poignantly than the late Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. Asked once about the biggest regret of her 15-year tenure, she replied that the “successful organisation of the Commonwealth Games did not get its due recognition.” Foreign delegates, she recalled, praised Delhi for hosting perhaps the best Games in CWG history. The city received a significant infrastructure boost. Yet instead of celebration, there followed what she called a “campaign of slander”.
Investigation committees came. Accusations flew. The narrative hardened. “Delhi today survives on the infrastructure we built for the Commonwealth Games,” she had said, lamenting that what should have been remembered as a civic milestone was drowned out by the cacophony of protest politics and relentless media outrage. A collapsed pedestrian bridge became national news but few spoke about the Barapullah elevated corridor, the upgraded stadia, the improved connectivity, or the renewed urban confidence the Games briefly generated.
It is impossible to tell the story of the CWG without telling the story of Kalmadi. On the sporting front, India delivered its best-ever CWG performance winning 101 medals, including 38 gold. Yet this triumph marked the beginning not of celebration, but of downfall.
The organising committee headed by Kalmadi was soon accused of mismanagement, inflated contracts and corruption. In April 2011, he was arrested and spent nine months in jail. The Games, which should have symbolised India’s arrival as a capable sporting host, were instead recast as example in a broader narrative of graft that would ultimately consume not only Kalmadi, but also the political standing of Sheila government and, in time, the Manmohan Singh-led UPA.
But the story did not end there. Over subsequent years, the CBI and ED filed closure reports. Courts accepted them. Kalmadi, eventually, was given what amounts to a legal clean chit. By the time this happened, however, the damage had been done.
It is worth considering, what if the charges had not been inflated, exaggerated, or prematurely weaponised? A different trajectory was plausible.Without the cloud of scandal, the CWG might have been remembered as an inflection point to prove that India could plan, execute and deliver world-class urban projects. That confidence could have emboldened governments to push further on public transport integration, sports development, urban renewal and civic services.
Instead, large-scale projects came to be viewed with suspicion, often paralysing decision-making. Public trust, too, suffered. The perpetual drumbeat of accusation fostered cynicism toward institutions, while those who rose to power promising corruption-free governancesoon found themselves facing allegations of their own, ironically creating a cycle of moral grandstanding and administrative stagnation.
This is argument is not against accountability or action against corruption. But there is a cost when accusation becomes spectacle and process becomes politics. Due process takes years. Reputations, once shredded, seldom recover. Policy, meanwhile, stands still.
Suresh Kalmadi’s passing, then, becomes more than a footnote about a controversial sports administrator. It is a reminder of a chapter in Delhi’s history when a great urban opportunity was overshadowed by scandal and when the promise of civic transformation gave way to distrust, polarisation and paralysis.
Sidharth Mishra, the author and president of the Centre for Reforms, Development & Justice