CHENNAI: After volleyball, it’s Rowing Federation of India's turn for its stalled election process to get completed. As expected, Balaji Maradapa of Tamil Nadu has been elected the president while Subhasish Mukherjee of Bengal has been elected the secretary general. Maradapa beat Harpal Singh comprehensively. He will be replacing out-going RFI president Rajalakshmi Singh Deo, who finished 12 years in office, and Mukherjee will replace MV Sriram (two terms). Chiranjit Phukan is the treasurer.
RFI got the green signal from the Delhi High Court to declare results for the elections condited in February 2024. With Olympics 2036 in mind, India cannot afford to have too many court cases on governance issues of National Sports Federations.
Maradapa has been involved with the sport for more than three decades and felt he had the edge because of his personal relationships within the rowing fraternity. “I know everyone in rowing personally and have been part of the federation for nearly 38 years,” he told this daily on Friday. But the new president has acknowledged that there will be bigger challenges because of the limited time they have for the Asian Games first (next year) and the Olympic qualification period for LA28.
“It is going to be a big responsibility,” he said. “More than one year there has been no federation so things need to be in order soon. The Asian Games is next year and we barely have a year to prepare. The Olympic Games is just three years away. So we needed to be back and start preparing for these big events. We must keep our Olympic bid also in mind. I think we will do better than before at the next Games.” He is a qualified coach and said he had trained national medallists and international players.
Court take on polls
The two-judge bench of chief justive Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Tushar Rao Gadela said that it was not correct for the managing authority whose terms had expired last year to carry on with the functioning of the RFI. It also said that it is not right that for one and a half years the results have not been declared.
The court said: “No doubt the petitioner has raised relevant grievances in respect of purported non-compliance of the Sports Code by RFI and the elections in such circumstances are liable to be interfered with, yet keeping in view the fact the petitioner itself was, concededly, not eligible to participate in the elections held on 25.02.2024 coupled with the fact that more than one and a half year has already passed since the elections were held, it does not appeal to reason as to why the result of the elections should not be declared and why the elected body should not be handed the charge and administration of the RFI.”
The court also said that in absence of the elected body, erstwhile managing authority whose term had otherwise expired, is continuing to administer the affairs of RFI. “This is not conducive either to the institution or the democratic values which are cherished,” said the court. In view of that the court modified the order.
Office bearers: President: Balaji Maradapa; secretary general: Subhasish Mukherjee; treasurer: Chiranjit Phukan; 4 vice presidents and 5 executive committee members.