Indian police Monday arrested the chief organiser of the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games and are set to charge him after a probe into allegations of widespread corruption at the scandal-tainted event. Suresh Kalmadi will be "produced before a special judge" on Tuesday and formally charged on several conspiracy counts relating to the awarding of commercial contracts, said Dharini Mishra, spokeswoman for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Late Monday, India's ruling Congress party suspended Kalmadi, who is a member of the lower house of parliament. Earlier Kalmadi was sacked as chairman of the Games organising committee as police investigated charges that the organisers had manipulated tenders and knowingly inflated costs.
The Games were meant to showcase India's status as an emerging global power, but the sporting headlines were stolen by venue delays, shoddy construction and budget overruns that saw the cost of the event triple to $6 billion. After the Games ended, corruption allegations began to swirl around Kalmadi and his committee.
Mishra cited specific charges that organising officials had conspired to ensure a contract for a private Swiss firm to be the event's official timekeeper by "wrongfully restricting and eliminating competition from other suppliers in a premeditated manner." Other charges related to contracts awarded for a 2009 ceremony in London to mark the start of the baton rally, which saw a Games baton travel across participating nations.
The main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party branded the arrest "belated" and "just the tip of the iceberg" and urged immediate action against others involved in alleged irregularities.
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