On Tuesday, SP Venkateshwaran, an MLA from Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), addressed the State Assembly and urged the Tamil Nadu government to prohibit the Chennai Super Kings team from participating in the league. He argued that the team should be banned because it doesn't have any players from the state yet promotes itself as a representative of Tamil Nadu.
No prominence to Tamil players
He said, “Today, the IPL tournament is very popular among the youth. Even though there are many talented players in Tamil Nadu, Chennai Super Kings doesn’t even have one native player. However, the management earns huge commercial profits by advertising to the people of Tamil Nadu as the ‘Tamil Nadu team.’
The CSK team which doesn’t give prominence to Tamil players should be banned,” said the Dharmapuri MLA said while speaking on the debate on the demand for grants for the sports development ministry in the state Assembly.
No complimentary passes
In the same debate, SP Velumani, a former minister from the AIADMK, insisted that the DMK government should provide complimentary tickets for IPL matches to MLAs, pointing out that his party had done so during their tenure.
“In the previous regime run by us (AIADMK), we had given up to 400 passes to all the MLAs. But now the DMK government is not providing passes to AIADMK MLAs. This should be considered,” Velumani requested of the state sports development minister, Udhayanidhi Stalin, in the House.
