EC announces dates for Lok Sabha Elections; BCCI in tight spot to host the IPL in India

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) hardly faces any issues as far as hosting the Indian Premier League (IPL) is concerned, they do have a lot to work on once every four years. 2019 is again an election year in India and it casts a shadow on hosing the IPL in the country. Today (March 10) the Election Commission of India announced the dates for the General elections and the board now has a lot of thinking to do.

The Lok Sabha elections, 2019 will be held across the country in seven phases and the polling procedure starts with the 1st phase to be held on April 11. The last phase is dated for May 19 whereas the counting will be done on May 23. The 2nd phase of voting will be done on April 18 and the subsequent phases on April 23, April 29, May 6, May 12 and the last phase on May 19 will conclude the voting procedure.

Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora also announced that the Model Code of Conduct will come into effect immediately from today. “Any violation ahead of the Lok Sabha elections will be dealt with in the strictest manner,” Arora said in a press conference.

Election date might even clash with IPL final

With the elections slated to be held for over a month, the BCCI will find it really difficult to host the middle part of the tournament in India. It was previously reported that they were under a lot of pressure from the broadcaster Star who wanted the whole of IPL to be held in India. As a precautionary move, they had held back from announcing the final schedule though the season is set to get underway on March 23 and only released the fixtures for the first two weeks.

Since the World Cup 2019 starts on May 30, the board will be in a tighter spot as they also have to maintain a safe gap in the IPL final and the start of the mega event in England. Thus it was speculated that the summit clash of the Indian T20 league will be played on Sunday, May 19. However, to do so in India will be a real challenge since the EC has also set May 19 as the last date for the poling.

Twice in the past, the IPL has had a clash with the general elections and on both occasions, security was the reason BCCI had to move the tournament out of the country. In 2009, the second season of the IPL was played in South Africa whereas the first half of IPL 2014 had to be hosted in the UAE.

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