Maharashtra Minister’s words of wisdom: ‘How can mothers, daughters watch this?’

But if Minister of State for Home Siddharam Mhetre has his way, IPL organisers are expected to only get conditional permission to hold the match and restrictions could be imposed on cheerleaders. Mhetre said he would consult the Central government before granting permission.

The issue was first raised in the state legislative council on Wednesday by BJP leader Nitin Gadkari. The Congress-NCP government, he said, should ban semi-naked women dancing in stadiums just like it had banned dance bars in 2005.

The Congress’s Mhetre seemed to wholeheartedly agree with him today. Cheerleaders were “obscene and simply vulgar,” he told reporters. “These are things meant for foreigners and not for us. Mothers and daughters watch these matches on television. It does not look nice.”

Political observers said it seemed like yet another occasion when Maharashtra’s vocal politicians had decided to briefly put their divisive agendas by the side and wield the moral baton on a frivolous issue.

On Wednesday, MLAs from the Shiv Sena, NCP and the BJP had come together to oppose a government move to introduce sex education in state schools from Class IX, with some members seeing it as a “western conspiracy” and one even saying it would lead to the appointment of “love gurus and sex gurus” in schools.

The same parties had also joined hands and unanimously backed a move by Mhetre’s boss, Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil, when he banned dance bars in the country’s entertainment capital and robbed the city of a popular attraction besides rendering thousands jobless.

Most parties have also come together in the past on similar cultural policing platforms, be it taking offence to what they say are “obscene” film posters or objecting to what they find to be explicit on TV channels.

IPL’s Tournament Director Dheeraj Malhotra told The Indian Express from Hyderabad that he had heard of the opposition to cheerleaders in Mumbai. “We are waiting for a formal communication from those who have objected to the presence of cheerleaders for the Mumbai Indians’ home games. As soon as we get something in writing we will take a call,” he said.

Other IPL venues had not objected to cheerleaders, he said.

BCCI veteran and a key member of IPL’s governing council, IS Bindra, said if the Maharashtra government ruled against cheerleaders, there was no question of defying it. “We have to go by the law of the land. If they ask us to withdraw, we would do that,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Mukesh Ambani camp, the franchise owner of the Mumbai team, too has adopted a wait-and-watch approach. A spokesman said that they would go by the decision of IPL’s governing council.