CHENNAI: The Indian Olympic Association has not ratified the recently-held elections of the Rowing Federation of India’s (RFI) citing ‘proxy voting’ as the reason for doing so. In a letter addressed to RFI president Rajlaxmi Singh Deo and signed by the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Narinder Batra on Saturday, the national federation has been asked to conduct elections within 90 days after correcting its voting pattern. The IOA issued a warning of forming an adhoc body if its issued directives are not followed.
During the Annual General Body Meeting of the IOA last month, Batra and secretary Rajeev Mehta had jointly decided that a re-election is needed because of two reasons. Firstly, proxy voting was involved in the elections that is not acceptable to the IOA. The other reason is the number of votes given by each of the state associations. Three votes were given by each state association while the voting per member/state unit, according to IOA, should be two.
MV Sriram was elected as the secretary-general while Nababuddin Ahmed was given the role of the treasurer. All posts were contested and the last few days prior to the elections saw high drama with Lt Gen Harpal Singh entering the fray for the post of president.
The Telangana Rowing Association had raised a protest regarding the eligibility of Harpal for the post, claiming that he is president of the Services Sports Control Board (SSCB), which makes him ineligible to contest. However, election officials did not entertain the protest.In all, 53 votes were counted for the post of president with Rajlaxmi bagging 30. Harpal got 19 and Girish four.