Allegations flew thick and fast as the Indian contingent slid deeper into the mire over the controversy surrounding Aparna Popat and chief coach Vimal Kumar. Vimal’s comments yesterday questioning Aparna’s attitude after she pulled out of the fifth-sixth place match against Malaysia has raised quite a storm here and it needed Badminton Association of India (BAI) president V K Verma to pull up the coach and issue gag orders on him and the players.With Verma and his colleagues being re-elected for another four-year term, the onus was on the president to sort out the issue. Instead, one controversy after another followed with the actual competition being relegated to the background.Aparna’s inclusion in the side for the Commonwealth Games was a foregone conclusion, but her participation in the 19-day camp in Indonesia from February 28 was not. The BAI, though, has made it clear that she has to attend the camp if she wants to play the Commonwealth Games. For now, Aparna is undecided, but if worst comes to worst, she wouldn’t hesitate to pull out, she said. Even as the controversies regarding Aparna showed no signs of dying down, another reared its head from unexpected quarters. With the five-member women’s squad picking itself, it’s the men’s squad that could spring an unpleasant surprise.Rumour has it that Chetan Anand could miss the bus to Melbourne. According to Verma, the criterion for selection to the side hinges on the players’ performances in the domestic circuit and hence Arvind Bhatt had a slightly better chance of making it, since he had beaten Chetan in the last nationals and had done well in the national ranking tournaments. As for Anup Sridhar, he was an automatic choice since he is the national champion.The final decision is expected in the next two days.
