3 in race for IOA prez, Mehta set to be re-elected as secy-gen

New Delhi, Nov 28 (PTI) Three candidates have filednomination papers for the post of president while Rajeev Mehtais set to be re-elected unopposed ...

New Delhi, Nov 28 (PTI) Three candidates have filednomination papers for the post of president while Rajeev Mehtais set to be re-elected unopposed as secretary-general in theIndian Olympic Association polls, to be held on December 14.

After the deadline for filing of nominations ended at 2pmtoday, the Returning Officer S K Mendiratta published the listof the nominated candidates.

International Hockey Federation President Narinder Batra,current IOA treasurer Anil Khanna and vice-president BirendraPrasad Baishya have filed nomination papers for the top job.

Incumbent Mehta, meanwhile, was the lone candidate tohave filed nomination papers for the post of secretary generaltill the deadline and is set to be re-elected for a secondterm.

Batra, the head of IHF, filed four sets of nominationpapers on November 26 with Mehta and treasurer Anil Khannabeing the proposers and seconders respectively.

But there was a last-minute surprise as Khanna himselfand Baishya filed nomination papers towards the end of thedeadline. Khanna filed his nomination at 12:35pm while Baishyadid the same just minutes before the 2pm deadline.

Indications that there could be withdrawals later wereevident from the fact that both Batra and Khanna also filedtheir nomination papers for the lone post of senior vice-president.

Incumbent Virendra Nanavati and current vice-presidents RK Anand and Janardhan Singh Gehlot were the other threecandidates who filed nomination papers for the lone seniorvice-president's post.

Nanavati, Baishya and Gehlot were also among those whofiled nominations for the eight posts of vice-presidents.

Others who filed nominations for vice-presidents areformer BJP National Council member Sudhanshu Mittal,Debendranath Sarangi, Tarlochan Singh, S M Bali, ParminderSingh Dhindsa, K Govindraj, Karan Chautala, Malav Shroff,Adille Sumariwalla, Sunaina Kumari, Dushyant Chautala, KuldeepVats, Ashutosh Sharma, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Viraj Sagar Das,Anil Jain.

For the post of treasurer, Rakesh Gupta, Mukesh Kumar andAnandeshwar Pandey filed the nomination papers.

Those who filed nomination papers for the post of sixjoint secretary are Onkar Singh, Rakesh Gupta, NamdevShirgaonkar, S M Bali, Vikram Sisodia, Kuldeep Vats, MukeshKumar, Raja K S Sidhu, D V Seetharama Rao and Ramavatar SinghJhakar.

There will election for 10 other Executive Councilmembers, for which 26 candidates have filed nomination papers.

Scrutiny of all the nomination papers will be done onNovember 30 while withdrawals are allowed till 4pm of December3.

Meanwhile, the IOA will hold a Special General BodyMeeting here tomorrow to "discuss and interpret" theeligibility criteria for election to the post of president andsecretary general.

But with the RO, Mendiratta, having issued a noticeon the same matter, the SGM may now accept his ruling when themembers assemble. He has ruled that office bearers and membersof the Executive Council elected in 2012 and 2014 can contestfor the post of president and secretary general.

This ruling cleared the candidature of Batra, who was oneof the vice-presidents from 2012 to 2014. He was not a memberof the Executive Council that was elected in February 2014when India returned to the Olympic fold after a ban of 14months. PTI PDS AHPDS.

This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.

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