CHENNAI: A day before they get together at a special general meeting called primarily to discuss how to implement Supreme Court orders on Lodha recommendations, members of the BCCI were more or less convinced that nothing much will come out of it.
The committee of administrators (CoA) met representatives of BCCI units in Mumbai on Sunday. States from West, South, Central met the CoA in the first half, with those from East and North attending the session after lunch.
If the main objective of the meeting was to brief them about how to go about making changes in the Constitution as prescribed by the CoA, it was reliably learnt that a majority of members came back with the same reservations against them.
N Srinivasan held centre stage in the first half of the interaction with CoA members Vinod Rai, Vikram Limaye and Diana Edulji.
A state unit head present in the room told Express that the former BCCI chief cut conversations short by saying that the SGM is the more appropriate forum to discuss this. Nobody else spoke and this meeting was over in 15 minutes. The one in the second half lasted over an hour, but sources said that even there, ICC matters figured more prominently than changes in the constitution.
It can be remembered that the CoA has given the BCCI and state units a draft of the model constitution, with a fresh set of rules on conflict of interest, other than a needs-based funds disbursement policy. They have been advised to accept these at the SGM. Of the 31 units, only Vidarbha and Tripura have remodelled their rules and regulations as per court orders so far.
“It looks unlikely that the changes will be accepted at the moment. One, the state units are still opposed to key changes like one-state-one-vote, cooling-off period and age cap of 70. Two, their applications regarding these are up for hearing on July 14. It’s better to decide after that. Three, we are still not clear if the court will consider reviewing the clauses about one vote from a state and five-member selection committee. Without clarity on these, I’m not sure the SGM will commit to making changes,” said another state unit president who will attend the SGM.
While Srinivasan was the cynosure at Sunday’s proceedings at the BCCI’s Cricket Centre inside the Wankhede Stadium complex, Sourav Ganguly was present as President of Cricket Association of Bengal. It is one of the several state units which have filed appeals at the Supreme Court that are scheduled for hearing on July 14. It was learnt that other than Andhra and Railways, representatives of all affiliated units were present.
How many selectors?
There are talks of getting back to the five-man selection committee, but whether the CoA or court will approve remains to be seen.
On the Agenda
The meeting has been called to discuss the following...
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