MUMBAI: The Election Commission (EC) Monday announced the dates for this year’s general Lok Sabha elections, which will begin on 11 April and end on 23 May.
Arguably, the largest democratic exercise in the world will attract an estimated 900 million voters and will significantly clash with the Indian Premier League (IPL) competition. The IPL will enter into its third week by then.
The tournament’s schedule has been released for 23 March-5 April and the BCCI had confirmed that the remainder of the same will begin to be formed once the election dates and out.
The board had also revealed back in February that it is likely to shun the home and away format for most of this season and hold matches at neutral venues in order to avoid a clash with the elections.
However, it is home matches that add to the revenues of franchises in the IPL due to gate receipts. The electric atmosphere of the stadiums and tailor-made pitches is what constitutes home advantage for many teams.
It is expected that the two franchises who will be the most affected due to the elections are tournament heavyweights and former champions, the Red Chillies Entertainment-owned Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and the Reliance-owned Mumbai Indians (MI).
As per the current IPL schedule, both the teams will play two home matches each till 5 April. However, seeing the election dates, it is likely that they will press the BCCI to add 2-3 more of those till 11 April.
Kolkata’s Eden Gardens, which has always been KKR’s fortress due to a 90,000-strong capacity, could well be out of bounds once the elections begin, due to the EC’s decision to order a seven-phase election in a state that elects 42 MPs to Parliament.
The BCCI could potentially present KKR with Jharkhand’s Ranchi and Odisha’s Bhubaneswar or Cuttack as alternate venues due to their close proximity from Kolkata in the eastern part of the country.
However, Odisha is one of the few states involved in four phases of the elections, from 11 April to 6 May. With the IPL final likely to be held on or before 15 May, the state is also not a feasible option for the franchise.
On the other hand, KKR could look to avail Ranchi before 29 April for a bulk of its home games. The JSCA International Stadium Complex in the city has a 50,000-strong capacity, although nearly half of Eden Gardens. Should the franchise finalise the ground, it might have to tinker with its marketing activities and know its fan base in the state better.
When it comes to Mumbai Indians, Wankhede Stadium has been the fortress of Rohit Sharma’s men with a 33,000-strong capacity and a vociferously partisan crowd. So the eventuality of moving at least half of their home matches out of the ground after April 5 or 11 will be a hard pill to swallow, but something they must prepared for.
Like Odisha, Maharashtra will be a part of four out of the seven phases of the elections, with 48 seats up for grabs from the state.
MI could also have two options in this context – Firstly, Goa which is a neighbouring state and secondly, Madhya Pradesh (MP) in the form of Gwalior or Indore.
Goa will only be busy from 23-29 April. The Nehru Stadium may not have hosted international matches since 2010, but it can take up to 27,300 people, which is a close number to the Wankhede. It could be given consideration again.
Otherwise the tried and tested batting-friendly grounds in MP could be great for the quality of matches. An additional plus is the support MI gets in most parts of the country.
Gwalior can attract a whopping 60,000 spectators vis-Ã -vis 30,000 at the Holkar Stadium in Indore. Another advantage with MP is that its elections begin from 29 April, which can make life easier for the BCCI and Mumbai Indians to come to an agreement.
