New Delhi, March 10: The Indian Premier League’s ban on political advertisements during the telecast of its matches has got political parties worried.

Congress and BJP sources admit in private they are concerned that their campaigners would be unable to reach living rooms at prime time in the run-up to the polls.

Both parties spend crores on their media campaigns, especially on television, which has the widest reach. But while their advertisements will be played on other channels, the majority of viewers would be watching cricket on Sony Max.

“We have seen the popularity of the IPL matches. Who will watch news channels when a good Twenty20 game is on? Our advertisements will largely go unseen since the evening hours are when families watch TV,” a senior BJP leader said.

The general election and the IPL more or less coincide in April-May — a fact that means the match organisers may be denied the kind of security they want at a time cricket has become a terror target. Now the politicians have realised they too stand to lose heavily.

The IPL governing council had decided to ban political advertisements during games ostensibly to keep sports and politics apart. Even the players are not supposed to make political endorsements.

Sources said the IPL governing council was now under pressure to lift the ban. Apart from the political parties’ desperation to catch prime-time viewers — especially the youth — this also makes commercial sense since the political ads can fetch the broadcaster a lot of money in this hour of economic slowdown.

The IPL governing council includes Lalit Modi, Sunil Gavaskar, M.A.K. Pataudi, Ravi Shastri, Rajiv Shukla, Chirayu Amin, I.S. Bindra and Arun Jaitley. Shukla is a Congress member and Jaitley is in charge of the BJP campaign.

No party, however, is willing to state on record that it wants the ban on political ads lifted. BJP “intellectual cell” convener Amitabh Sinha, closely associated with the election campaign, denied that his party wanted the ban off.

“This (ban) ensures a level playing field, so why should we be worried? We don’t want the ban lifted. We think it is in bad taste to insert political appeal into this high-voltage Twenty20 format,” Sinha said.

He alleged that the Congress was interfering with the IPL. Sinha claimed the Congress had earmarked a huge sum for TV ads during IPL matches and had hired an agency to pursue this.

Congress spokesman Veerappa Moily denied the charges, saying his party had never interfered in sports. “This is for the IPL governing council to decide. But we certainly think political parties should be able to avail the (TV) space,” Moily said.