The Bangalore Turf Club has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. The first week’s racing of the season was marred by a mishap on the track and subsequent vandalism by irate punters. The incident received wide coverage and the inadequacies of the powers that be to handle the situation and their ignorance played a large role in the situation going out of hand. To compound matters, there was a huge raid on the premises by the Central Crime Branch squad on Friday to unearth illegal activities taking place in the club.
The ego of one Stewards who refuses to believe that the track is far from satisfactory also resulted in the mishap not being enquired into when the first two favourites were involved led to the suspicion in the minds of the punters that the authorities were hand in glove with the bookmakers and their lack of any action was a conspiracy. This was an overwhelming opinion of the punters and even those who are unaware of the intricacies of the sport and in no way connected with the betting or racing were also heard saying in social circles that the Stewards should have made the race null and void in the interests of the punters to ensure fair play.

Interestingly, the police have said that following complaints of irregularities by punters and bookies in BTC and the evasion of GST, the Central Crime Branch conducted a raid on the premises of the club and seized Rs 96 lakhs in cash and detained 40 persons. Police also said that they have issued notices to various BTC officials asking them to appear before them for investigation. According to DCP Sandeep Patil, the raid was carried out by a team of 30 officials headed by four Deputy Commissioners, four assistant commissioners and 20 inspectors. The police action came on the back of the allegation by the Public Accounts Committee Chairman H K Patil’s allegation about various irregularities in the functioning of BTC.

Who made the complaint to the police? In the month of April, the then chairman of the club Harimohan Naidu had told a TV channel that evasion of tax by the bookmakers and illegal betting was not their concern and it was the job of the police to regulate them forgetting the fact that the bookmakers operated in its premises and were licensed by the club. The lack of concern at the illegal betting taking place in its premises and his statement could well have been the trigger for Friday’s well-planned police action? Did the then chairman willy nilly bring about the present scenario which could well see the bookmakers absenting themselves for a considerable period for fear of police action and thereby causing attendant loses to the club by way of stall fee? Your guess is as good as mine. The turf club had de-licensed the bookmakers but it was during Naidu's term that they made a comeback. The bookmakers are never known to keep a transparent book of accounts and Naidu's action of bringing them back raised many questions than answers. This sort of a raid and bad publicity would not have come about if the club had continued with the practice of having betting only on the club operated totalizator pools on which all bettings are properly recorded and there is no scope for cheating.

A picture released by the police showed piles of cash which was seized by the police. Incidentally, the City Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao who is also the ex-officio Steward of the Club is seen in the picture. Last week, the Police Commissioner had come to present a cup and had spent a considerable period at the club familiarising himself with what was happening at the club. Several wild stories made the rounds including in the TV channel that the racing incident of the first day was rigged resulting in the CCB being asked to investigate the matter which possibly could be another trigger for Friday’s action.

It has been highlighted in these columns how the egoistic Stewards and Committee members had been behaving in the most amateurish manner bringing disrepute to the sport. Their whimsical decisions and intolerance to criticism have been widely commented upon. Their lack of understanding of the sport and many an illegal decision taken by them have not gone down well with the racing public. Their inability to carry the media along has been the biggest negative factor affecting the image of the club. They don’t seem to care, and the members are not bothered if they get their freebies. Only the other day there was a word of caution in these columns to the BTC mandarins that it was waking up the sleeping giant by its dubious decision-making process and how a select few having been running riot.

On Friday, hordes of police from CCB descended on the racecourse and did an inspection of various departments of the club. A group of these people were also seen at the bookmakers’ ring. The bookmakers operated for a race or two collecting 28 per cent tax instead of the 10 per cent tax that they take on the sly without recording the full bet amount in the betting sheets but they stopped their operations after the third race and abandoned their stalls. The turf club did not inform the punters of what was going on. The turf club kept making the announcement asking the racegoers not to panic and cooperate. What the announcement was meant to convey only the turf club officials can explain. After all the punters had come to a place where they could legally place a bet and what was the need to say that one need not panic as if the police were investigating whether any bomb had been planted in the premises.

The bookmakers are unlikely to operate on Saturday as nobody is sure what to expect. The turf club authorities on their part have buried their head in the sand and no communication is forthcoming from them.