We will map state and district-wise sport talent and strengths, recognize the traditional sporting practices and focus on the promotion of specific sports in specific regions… we will continue to provide adequate resources under this scheme to ensure the achievement of declared objectives. Under this scheme, special attention will be given to encourage sporting talent among women and tribals.

The 2019 promise on sport has three testable parts: map "state and district-wise sport talent and strengths", continue "to provide adequate resources under this scheme", and give "special attention… to encourage sporting talent among women and tribals".

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports was asked on 3 August 2026 for exactly the material that would test these: details of athletes trained and given scholarships since inception, district-wise details of Khelo India Centres and State Centres of Excellence, and the findings of any assessment of the programme.

Its answers point elsewhere. On evaluation: "A third-party evaluation of Khelo India Scheme has been conducted in respect of its implementation from 2021-22 to 2025-26. Details of the third-party evaluation are available on dashboard of this Ministry." On athletes and centres: those details "are available in the public domain on the dashboard of the Ministry."

A dashboard is public, and pointing to it is not concealment. But an answer to Parliament is the record; a dashboard changes without versioning and cannot be cited to a date. A question asking what an evaluation found is not answered by saying where the evaluation lives.

One sentence in the reply is substantive, and it matters more than it looks: "The Khelo India Scheme is a demand-driven scheme. Proposals received from the State/Union Territory Governments and other eligible entities for development of sports infrastructure and expansion of sports development initiatives are considered for financial support, subject to their completeness, technical feasibility, infrastructure gaps, sporting potential, readiness for implementation and availability of funds."

Demand-driven funding rewards states with the administrative capacity to write good proposals. The manifesto's promise was the opposite of that — special attention to women and to tribal areas, which are precisely where proposal-writing capacity is thinnest. The answer offers no mechanism reconciling the two, and no figures showing where the money actually went.

On talent mapping, the promise's first limb, the answer says nothing.

The accuracy here is recorded as unverifiable: the scheme continued and was funded, and the material that would show what it achieved was not placed before Parliament.