The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Devraj Saikia has opened up on the reason why there was a sudden change in IPL final venue. By virtue of RCB being the 2025 IPL champions, the final was supposed to be played at Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru, but the final shifted to Ahmedabad, creating controversy among fans. The BCCI secretary attributed this to the high demand of the Karnataka Cricket Association for VIP’s and MLAs, where KSCA asked for 10,000 extra tickets, which left BCCI shocked. According to IPL, only 15% complimentary tickets are allowed, but such high asks are beyond reason.

“We were shocked when we received an email response from the Karnataka State Cricket Association on May 2. In that email, they stated that, apart from the 15% complimentary ticket quota, they required a substantial additional allocation of tickets for their members, affiliated clubs, and several others.

Most surprisingly, they also requested tickets for local MLAs, Members of the Legislative Council, and 700 complimentary tickets for the Karnataka government. So, over and above the 15% allocation, they were demanding approximately 10,000 additional tickets.” said Devraj Saikia.

Karnataka Deputy CM D. K. Shivakumar said the venue change was for logistical reasons and not the VIP tickets, but BCCI secretary slammed this remark by saying the association had asked for 700 VIP tickets and that was the sole reason for such a decision.

Harsh Goenka and Lalit Modi slam MLA privilege for IPL Final Tickets

Former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi and industrialist Harsh Goenka have also slammed Karnataka MLAs for seeking VIP quota IPL tickets for free as a privilege. They called this out by saying that IPL is a major hit tournament for fans and not for the MLAs and VIP’s.

“This is absolutely complete nonsense. Why should they be privileged? It’s the fan who made the @IPL not the elected representatives. Yet they want it as their birthright,” Lalit Modi tweeted.