"Sports shouldn't bear burden of political failures": Shashi Tharoor on Bangladeshi cricketer removed from IPL

Wayanad (Kerala) [India], January 5 : Congress MP Shashi Tharoor expressed disappointment over the exclusion of Bangladeshi player Muztafizur Rahman from the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026, stating that sports should be kept apart from politics.
Tharoor termed it an "unwise" decision, primarily when the Indian government is engaged with Bangladesh to ensure the protection of minorities.
Speaking with ANI on Sunday, Congress MP said, "I made my view very clear on this from the start. I've argued for some time that sport should be kept apart from politics, or rather that sport should not be made to bear the principal burden of political failures."
"The fact of the matter is that there are many other ways in which we are dealing with Bangladesh, as we have to. Our foreign minister was just there a couple of days ago, meeting with the man who is widely expected to be the likely winner of the next election and therefore the likely Prime Minister. We are conducting various aspects of engagement with the people of Bangladesh," he added.
Tharoor was referring to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar's recent meeting with Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman.
Tharoor further expressed disappointment with what he believed was "social media outrage" driven policy and said that sports should be used to "diffuse" the tension, not to "exacerbate" it.
"At such a delicate moment, this seems to me to have been an extremely unfortunate and unwise decision... It's also troubling that we have seen the kind of social media outrage driving policy. Some things I think should be beyond this kind of thing. When you have tensions with countries, sports become a good way of diffusing those tensions. What has been done only exacerbated the tension and made them worse," he said.
This comes after Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) confirmed on Saturday that the franchise has excluded Bangladeshi player Muztafizur Rahman from its Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 squad following a directive from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
The inclusion of the Bangladesh player had sparked a political backlash in India, particularly amid the recent targeting of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh, and various opinions were raised about Mustafizur's selection by KKR for the IPL 2026 season.
Following the exclusion of the player, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) requested that the International Cricket Council (ICC) relocate Bangladesh's matches in the upcoming ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2026 to venues outside India, citing "safety and security" concerns of the Bangladeshi players.
The BCB said that the team will not travel to India for the 2026 T20 World Cup, set to be hosted jointly by India and Sri Lanka over the "growing concerns regarding the safety and security of the Bangladesh contingent"