CHENNAI: The Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India (FMSCI) has elected industrialist and Raymond Group chairman Gautam Singhania to contest elections to the FIA’s World Motor Sports Council on their behalf, the body said on Tuesday.The World Motor Sports Council is the most powerful body in international motorsports and functions as a board that governs the sport globally. It has fourteen elected members who serve for a four-year term. In the current council, whose term began in 2013 and will end in December 2017, India was being represented by Vijay Mallya, who had stepped down in July. Following his exit, India had been without a representative in the council.
Singhania will attempt to fill that void in December when the 196-member FIA AGM votes to fill the WMSC. FMSCI president Akbar Ebrahim will represent India at the AGM and will cast its vote at the election. Ebrahim will also serve as deputy titular to Singhania if he gets elected. “We have nominated him, but if he gets elected, he will sit on the board in his individual capacity,” Ebrahim said. “We do not know yet how many people are contesting. The last date to file your nominations was on October 13, so the candidates will be revealed in the coming days. It is difficult to assess his chances at this stage.”
In the race for the nomination, alongside Singhania was former FMSCI president Vicky Chandhok. Singhania, in a series of tweets, revealed that he had won the election by seven votes to one. FMSCI actually had the option to nominate both of them for the elections, but chose to go only with Singhania. “We had the option to nominate two, but to the best of my knowledge, we have only nominated one for all the previous elections,” Ebrahim said.