BAI sends open letter to Prakash

NEW DELHI, June 30: First, there were the closed door confabulations; now comes the open letter. The Badminton Federation of India’s goodwill collection drive picked up speed with its present and former Presidents VK Verma and Fazil Ahmed releasing open letters to `friend’, rival federation chief and badminton great Prakash Padukone, today.

The operative part of the whole exercise lies in Ahmed’s letter where he says, “I want to make it clear that nobody could misguide me and mistakes, if any, are entirely my own.”Significantly, BAI’s `guiding hand’ wants Padukone, “to reciprocate my gesture and help in developing the game from within the BAI, rather than take steps which may be detrimental to the game.”The present BAI chief Verma’s letter, on the other hand, is quite officious in tone as well as in content, and expresses hope that BAI and Padukone, “could meet and discuss every single issue which has a bearing on the welfare of players and improvement of standards of the game in the country.”

The letter, however, ends in a not-so-formal invitation to Padukone: “May I…invite you to Delhi as my guest. I have no doubt that you and I can rise to the occasion with only the good of the game as our common agenda.”