Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar and Brijesh Patel are back at the helm of affairs in the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA). Their group won all 23 seats with a huge margin in the elections for the State cricket body.
Their victory was unexpected. The incumbent group led by Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath quietly back-tracked and did not contest.
Wadiyar polled 923 votes to Sadanand Maiya’s 428. Brijesh Patel got the highest votes with 977 as against A V Jayaprakash’s rather slim tally of 374.
Dayanand Pai was elected as the treasurer with 932 votes while Tallam Venkatesh got 419 votes.
“We are quite confident that we will win comfortably,” Brijesh had said on the eve of the elections. His assessment
turned out to be correct. Brijesh, who was the secretary for 12 years from 1998, had also said the incumbent group had rubbed members the wrong way. “The way they have treated senior members of the association is definitely going to work in our favour,” he opined. His words have been prophetic. After a stormy AGM, a majority of the 1,351 voters decided to throw their might behind the Wadiyar-Brijesh group. Wadiayr thus defeated Sadanand Maiya to become the president for the second time and Brijesh sidelined A V Jayaprakash to be re-elected as the secretary. R Sudhakar Rao, Sanjay Desai and P R Ashok Anand were elected as vice presidents while J Abhiram, Ramadhyani and C R Laxminarayan lost the elections.
Office-bearers Elected
Managing Committee: Raghuram Bhat (953), Dodda Ganesh (899), Mallikarjun Swamy (816), Srinivas Murthy (881), V M Manjunath (809), Lachman Nathani (791). Institutional members (Bangalore): City Cricketers (980), Swastic Union Cricket Club (872), Vultures Cricket Club (782), Jayanagar Colts (894), Vijaya CC (Malur) (860), Bangalore Cricketers (882). Institutional members (Non-Bangalore): Mysore (RBN CC, 811), Shimoga (Durgi Gudi Cricket 908), Mangalore (Mangalore Sports, 770) Dharward (BDK Sports).