CHENNAI: All the pointers in lead up to the special general body meeting of the BCCI promised one thing — accepting the Lodha panel reforms except for three contentious points. But the BCCI likes to throw a surprise or two. And instead of finding itself in a place where the Supreme Court might after all heed to their pleas, the board added two more reforms which it feels might rock the boat. The new points are the size and constitution of the apex council and restriction and disqualification of office bearers, ministers and government officials. Reforms on age, tenure and cooling off period were also rejected.
When the BCCI formed a special committee to look into the issues that were barring the board from implementing the Lodha panel recommendations as ordered by the Supreme Court, it had come up with three — one-state one-vote, size of the selection committee and cooling-off period. However, as the SGM assembled in New Delhi on Wednesday afternoon following the latest Supreme Court hearing on Monday, where it emerged that the three-member bench was willing to reconsider few reforms which are practically impossible to implement, there was a growing sense of optimism.
The optimism stemmed from the fact that the apex court had barred N Srinivasan and Niranjan Shah — whom several board officials said were the road block for implementing the reforms — from attending the meeting as they were no more office-bearers in their respective state units due to different ineligibility criteria. However, all of it went for a toss as the board said it will accept all the reforms except for five.
And that five is where the problem has always been. By including the size and constitution of the apex council, the board has sought more powers to the office-bearers as against the CEO. Though the board has a CEO in Rahul Johri now, he isn’t the decision maker as the secretary holds the powers and is the convener of all important meetings.
The apex council accommodates only one vice-president as against the existing five and it is understood that several members wanted a rise in the number. “Currently, it’s proposed size is five members. It has only one vice-president and members are of the opinion that it is smaller in size considering the length and breadth of country,” secretary Amitabh Choudhary said.
With regards to disqualification of office bearers, ministers and government officials, the board has cited the case of Railways and Services which are represented by the officials from the respective department. With both directly coming under the Central government, the board reckons it will be impossible to keep government officials from the body.
“If we want Railways or Services to retain full membership (voting) rights, then they can only be represented by either a government employee or a minister,” Choudhary said.
It is important to note here that the BCCI has appealed to the apex court to give back the voting rights to these two as they have teams participating in the Ranji Trophy. Though Choudhary said the board has unanimously accepted all the other reforms, one year since the July 18, 2016 order has been spent debating these same points, which none of the board officials are ready to accept as it affects several administrators.
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