CHENNAI: The body running the BCCI is in a supreme mess. That the court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) is a divided house was well known. Now, differences between Vinod Rai and Diana Edulji are out in the open. Edulji has asked BCCI office-bearers and senior employees to not follow Rai’s instructions unless they are endorsed by her.
Going by a series of e-mails between the two CoA members and other BCCI officials over the last week (in possession of this newspaper), it’s evident that the two don’t concur on key issues. Selection of coach for the women’s team has pulled the trigger.
No action against a senior BCCI employee despite him facing conflict of interest charges, last year’s Virat Kohli-Anil Kumble incident and leaking information to the media are some of the other issues.
Accusing Rai of taking decisions ‘unilaterally’, Edulji has questioned the move to set up an ad-hoc committee to select the women’s coach. Kapil Dev, Anshuman Gaekwad and Shantha Rangaswamy are members of this committee, which will interview candidates on December 20.
Edulji says a process to select the coach was already underway wherein six candidates had been shortlisted. Her argument is, before closing that process, another shouldn’t be initiated.
“I have read Mr Rai’s mail and don’t agree with it,” Edulji wrote to BCCI office-bearers and other officials on Tuesday. “As chairman, he can’t take unilateral decisions as there is no casting vote for the (CoA) chairman. Rahul (Johri, CEO) and Saba (Karim, General Manager), without my approval you cannot proceed on this.”
She was referring to Rai’s mail a day earlier, instructing Johri and Karim to go ahead with plans of setting up the ad-hoc committee.
“I have considered all aspects of the issue. In the best interest of women’s cricket as chairman of the COA, I reiterate my views. Rahul and Saba may please take action as instructed by me yesterday,” Rai had written.
There are other exchanges, where Edulji says Rai is overruling her and ignoring the fact that her opinion has to be taken into account when taking decisions. “You have failed to understand that I have an equal say in all matters of BCCI as COA with equal rights not less not more...It is strange that in a democratic setup of COA, only views of one person are considered and the views expressed by the other member don’t matter,” the former India women’s captain wrote in another correspondence.
Describing how Rai has been calling the shots, Edulji brings up the issue of conflict of interest concerning BCCI logistics manager Mayank Parikh, which was reported by this newspaper in October. Parikh owns a few clubs in the Mumbai league. Former BCCI general manager, the late R Sridhar was removed from the post after news came out that he owned clubs in the Hyderabad league. In Parikh’s case, however, nothing has been done.
“I urge that in the issue of Mayank Parikh, we will have to tread very cautiously as we cannot afford to have a setback on any decision of ours from the courts. We have taken the opinion of a senior counsel who has been regularly advising us on all our establishment issues. I would like to follow his advice,” Rai wrote on December 10.
In reply to this, Edulji told Rai that the CoA was not doing its duty.
“With regards to Mayank, we had agreed it was a clear case of conflict of interest but later you changed your stand. Conflict of interest rules should not differ depending on who the person is, it should be impartial. This is defeating the purpose for what the COA was appointed.” Marked as recipients in these mails, BCCI office-bearers can afford a quiet chuckle. The body formed to govern them is showing signs of falling apart.