It appears the only competition Arnab  Goswami, Editor-in-Chief, Times Now, has in terms of loudness on Newshour has been banished from the show altogether.  In a sensational development, Boria Majumdar, cricket historian/ commentator/ journalist/ expert/ analyst and above all Times Now’s in-house cricket expert – we have been told by those associated with cricket and journalism – is no longer in Times Now’s employment. While the details of the alleged parting are sketchy at best, our sources tell us that it wasn’t the most amicable of separations.

There has been much speculation about what exactly transpired.  However, all versions of the event put our multifaceted cricket expert Boria Majumdar on very slippery ground. So we figured the best people to ask would be the men themselves – Boria and Arnab.  Now, Arnab being a man who believes in engaging with only his equals, refused to talk to us. Very expectedly, Arnab stuck to his favourite line of “I don’t give interviews”. Of course, Arnab just questions; never answers.  In the meantime, our ongoing investigations were starting to point towards what appeared to be a rather unceremonious sacking of Boria Majumdar.  Soon enough we got confirmation from sources other than the two involved parties, that Boria was indeed sacked by Times Now on the grounds of “questionable journalistic practices”.

There still persisted doubts over what the exact nature of the “practices” Boria was found to be indulging in were. What led to such a smart man like him being caught so terribly and embarrassingly off-guard? Our investigations were making it increasingly clear that the sacking had something to do with how he would report a particular story around the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI).  Now, anyone with the faintest knowledge about cricket would know that these are turbulent times for India’s cricket governance body – the BCCI and a single wrong move could end one’s career. Boria seems to be one of the first casualties of the times. BCCI with the masterstroke on this occasion.

Boria Majumdar’s closeness to the BCCI is well known and it first came to light when the bad-boy of BCCI, Lalit Modi, decided that if he is going down, he might as well take a few with him too. Modi who happens to be a compulsive tweeter often takes to Twitter to vent his grievances against the world (read BCCI), which he believes is full of people who’ve wronged him. It was on Twitter that he revealed that Boria has been a regular and often unreasonable beneficiary of the BCCI’s largesse.  He claimed, with documentary evidence, that Boria was commissioned by the BCCI for a whopping Rs. 52 lakhs to write a book – a charge the BCCI calmly refuted by claiming that it was only 33 lakhs. Modi also accused Boria of availing travel allowances amounting to almost Rs. 1.5 lakhs from the BCCI.

One could obviously claim that Modi’s venom at Boria is borne more out of vested interests than any solid rationale, but there are a few critics of Boria who are difficult to ignore. Rahul Mehra is one of them. Mehra is a lawyer who has been at the forefront when sports bodies have been pitted against public interests; bringing the BCCI under RTI, the Indian Olympics Association’s not abiding by the International Olympics Committee guidelines and the Commonwealth Games debacle. Mehra points to a few events that do not make Boria look good. Mehra was a part of the Working Group constituted to draft the National Sports Development Bill 2013. But he couldn’t continue in the role for too long and Mehra cites Boria’s “hostile attitude” as one of his reasons for choosing to quit. In his resignation letter to the Sports Minister – of which Newslaundry has a copy – Mehra accuses Boria of trying to “gag” him from speaking to the media and the public. Mehra’s apprehensions were about Boria’s commitment to transparency in dealing with the contentious issue of the bill on sports administration bodies’ public accountability. The BCCI has always flexed its muscle against any call for greater accountability on its part, using its clout and connections. It seems the BCCI invariably manages to find the right people at the right place to help its cause too.

Boria, however, seems to have nothing to say on all of this. We tried contacting him through all possible modes, but he chose to not respond. Meanwhile, Sachin Tendulkar announced his retirement and no channel had Boria commenting on it. Who would have thought? The Times of India did carry a piece by Boria Majumdar even though he was absent from the Times Now studio. It would indeed be in the interest of all parties involved and transparency in journalism if official communications would lay all speculation to rest.