Let it be the beginning

As another year in the Gregorian calendar elapses into history and the dawn of a new year just breaks, one might be excused if he or she wakes up with a wistful sense of utopia.
Is it really the dawn of hope in the context of Bangladesh after that historic general election? Will this day be the beginning of fulfilling the promises that have been made by the two unquestionable voices of the nation during the fierce yet fairly contested battle for the December 29 polls?
True that there was no specific promise regarding the state of affairs of country's sport in those election manifestos of the victors and the vanquished, but we, the sport scribes, want to believe that it was unwittingly unaddressed for other pressing real life issues instead of anything else. However, we are not ready to entertain the idea that it was not addressed to uphold the age-old cliche of keeping 'politics out of sport'.
The ground reality anywhere in the world is that if you are in power you will call all the shots in every field because at the end of the term it's only you who will be accountable for success or failure.
Now in the post-election time, we want political acumen and the slogan of 'change' to dictate sport along with other aspects of life. Sport in our country has long been starving for a definitive guideline or a policy that we believe can be discussed and finally passed in the parliament in all probabilities to be headed by a prime minister who is an avid follower of sport.
We want a complete package instead of crying left and right to know whether the presidents of all sports federations will be elected or not, if the National Sports Council will be abolished as the regulatory body and the Bangladesh Olympic Association will take over, or will the district sports association be still headed by the respective deputy commissioners.
It is high time that we gave a long hard look at the 1974 National Sports Council Act. Rules are made for the betterment of the society. But standing in the twenty-first century and facing the challenges of new ideas we are now in a desperate situation to evaluate and decide whether we will stick to it or make adjustments for the improvement of sports in the country.
It is not that efforts have not been made before to formulate a new sports policy but the battle was lost against a vested force that was successful with its foul play by convincing incompetent sports bosses that amendments to the existing law and passing it in the parliament was impossible.
Impossible is a word the nation has proved wrong in an election that defied fear and all imagination. Much has been promised. Now it's time to turn those words into deeds. Let the first dawn of the New Year be the beginning of turning the unfulfilled dreams into realities.