Click to play videoMumbai: The Maharashtra Government has asked Indian Premier League (IPL) team franchisees to apply for permits before cheerleaders can be allowed to perform in Mumbai.
The move came as a response to politicians who alleged the cheerleaders were “vulgar”.
“They will first have to take our permission. We will allow them on the condition that there’s nothing vulgar in their performance,” said Home Department Minister Siddharam Mehtre.
Opposition leaders in the legislature on Wednesday said that if bar dancers were banned for promoting immorality then cheerleaders were no less obscene.
“The way the cheerleaders dance in the cricket match is very vulgar. It is even worse than the bar dancers. NCP, especially R R Patil, should say whether they are going to ban the cheerleaders or not,” said BJP president, Maharashtra Nitin Gadkari.
This isn't the first time that Maharashtra politicians have played moral police.
From the ban on bar dancers, to the opposition to public display of affection and now the restrictions against cheerleader, Maharashtra slowly seems to be acquiring the reputation of being an intolerant state.
But the average citizen of Maharashtra doesn't seem to be bothered by these cheerleaders.
“Everyone here is mature enough to understand their morality. It doesn’t need to be forced down our throats,” an angry IPL follower said.
Terming it is “merely entertainment,” some even argue that applying the same logic, Bollywood item numbers should be banned too.
But actor Shah Rukh Khan, who owns the IPL Kolkata Knight Rider team, prefers to toe the diplomatic line.
“If there has been somebody's stand that it should not be done we should look at it again and fully respect it. As a filmmaker, as an actor and as a cricket team owner, I have never believed that I need to sell something in a derogatory way to make it popular,” he said.
So while the game takes a back seat in the face of this controversy, cheerleaders just seem to have become a soft target for moral policing politicians.
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