NEW DELHI: The nomination form for the upcoming Archery Association of India (AAI) elections scheduled for January 18 came out on Tuesday with Union Minister Arjun Munda and former IAS officer BVP Rao contesting for the president’s post. During the last elections, parallel polls were conducted with the Munda faction doing so here while the Rao group organised the same in Chandigarh. That had ultimately led to World Archery suspending the AAI.
Of the 19 office-bearer posts on offer, Munda’s group is vying for all while Rao & Co will be fighting for 10 posts. The issue of whether Rao is a domicile of Assam will be raised by the other group. Rao’s candidature is from Assam while he is a resident of Hyderabad. According to AAI’s constitution Article 16 (b), “An office-bearer shall be a domicile citizen of India and a domicile of the state whose Archery Association he/she represents.”
They will ask the Returning Officer PK Tripathi to check for domicile certificates. Wednesday is the final day of scrutiny and it remains to be seen if the idea is feasible with only a few hours left for candidates to produce their certificates. Interestingly, both representatives of the Archery Association of Assam — Rao and Jayanta Boro — bear the same address. Boro is contesting for the post of one of the vice-presidents. According to a member of the Rao faction, this is a non-issue. “This rule was included in the constitution during the last amendment, mainly for Rao. After the rule was included, he has contested two polls and it has never been a problem.”
But nothing can be straightforward. Maha Singh, secretary of the Chandigarh faction, went to Delhi High Court to raise three issues and seek direction regarding the same. The issues were the removal of Nagaland from the electoral roll, the inclusion of a particular association from Haryana and the reason behind Uttarakhand’s inclusion.The hardcopy of Nagaland’s affidavit had failed to reach the court on time, leading to the RO not including them. Haryana had two associations and after due diligence by the RO, it had emerged that the Haryana Archery Association seemed to be the rightful body. Uttarakhand had a different name but were members of AAI so were granted entry.
“These are all ploys from the Rao group to try and postpone the poll process. They know they do not have the requisite numbers and hence are raising these issues,” member of the Munda faction said. The other faction’s response is that these are trivial matters. “The court will meet on January 10 and it will be sorted. There is no question of postponing elections. We are confident of securing victory.”The final list of candidates will be out on January 14.
Nominees
President Arjun Munda, BVP Rao
Secretary Maha Singh, Pramod Chandurkar
Treasurer Samikhya Nanda Das, Rajendra Singh Tomar