CHENNAI : Several units of the BCCI are yet to appoint an electoral officer, as directed by the Committee of Administrators. Even then, in an apparent show of unity and strength, around 20 from the old guard met in New Delhi on Monday, with former BCCI president N Srinivasan appearing via video-conference. With the next hearing of the Supreme Court tentatively set for August 8, the members want to bring an end to the mess. At the same time, they are ready to fight to preserve their rights in their state units.
The meeting saw treasurer Anirudh Chaudhary, former BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah, Jay Shah — the president of Gujarat Cricket Association and son of BJP president Amit Shah — in attendance and representation from the associations of Mumbai, Maharashtra, Baroda, Punjab, Goa, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal, Assam, Andhra and Hyderabad among others. Significantly, four from the Northeast states were also called.
While the majority expressed displeasure over the manner in which CoA has been operating, there seems to be a new bone of contention. That is giving voting rights to former international players from each state. While some have no issues in doing this, some are of the view that owing to practical purposes, they won’t be able to do so. There are talks of unanimously opposing it.
“There won’t be any consistency in this regard. Some states like Mumbai, Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu will have a lot of international cricketers and some states will have one or two. There is going to be no uniformity on this. If the whole concept is to be consistent on all fronts, where is consistency in this?” an official present in the meeting said.
There also seem to be voices against the hurried manner in which some of the units were granted affiliation, especially in cases where there have been long pending disputes with regards to which set of officials should have a hold over the unit.
“The CoA has made a mess of it. It deviated from its job. All of us want the elections to be held as early as possible. We want a few clarifications and have approached the Supreme Court. Moreover, the original order doesn’t mention the states’ constitution should mirror that of the BCCI. But the CoA wants us to follow it as it is,” a West Zone official said.