While controversies shrouding the last year’s common wealth games still rages, it has now come to the fore that even the appointment of Suresh Kalmadi as the common wealth games (CWG) organizing committee chairman was not sans some secretive and allegedly unfair exercise carried out right under the nose of the prime minister’s office (PMO).

Six years before, on October 25,2004 , much to the disappointment of former youth affairs and sports minister, late Sunil Dutt, whose name was decided for the post by the group of ministers (GoM), Kalmadi superseded him in a dramatic turn of events.

A letter written by Dutt to the PMO on November 14, 2004, now accessed by Hindi daily, Dainik Jagran reveals he was informed of Kalmadi’s appointment through a letter from the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) routed through the PMO itself.

Even though the GoM took a decision to appoint him for the post and the decision was made public, the minute details of the GoM meeting distributed in the ministries had no mentioning of the same. In his letter to the PMO on November 14, 2004, he raised the issue as well his displeasure on the discrepancy in the GoM decision and the PMO letter. However, his concerns went unheard.

After the decision on him, Dutt had proceeded to the USA to solicit donations for a cancer hospital in the memory of his late wife Nargis Dutt. On coming back, he received the letter from the IOA dated October 28, 2009 informing him about Kalmadi’s appointment.

In his letter to the PMO, Dutt wrote that he waited for the details of GoM meeting which he received on November 10 but that had no mentioning of the decision on CWG organizing committee.

Already in the midst of allegations of unfair spectrum allocation, the issue has brought the PMO under scanner yet again. The appointment of the CWG organizing committee chairman was the point where government’s control over the committee had ended.