Press Trust of India
Chennai, March 2: Veteran cricket administrator Jagmohan Dalmiya returned Monday as the BCCI president after being unanimously elected at the board’s AGM here. However, the N Srinivasan camp suffered a setback when rival faction’s Anurag Thakur edged out Sanjay Patel for the secretary’s position.
Thakur’s slender one-vote victory over Patel provided the only moment of triumph for the anti-N Srinivasan camp at the elections which were swept by the ruling group loyalists at the much-postponed AGM. However, this victory will not be of much use to the Sharad Pawar lobby as in the BCCI constitution it is the president who has the final say.
Jharkhand Cricket Association’s Amitabha Choudhary was elected the joint secretary beating Goa’s Chetan Desai who belonged to the Pawar camp. Haryana’s Anirudh Choudhary won the treasurer’s position by defeating one time pro-Srini group member Rajiv Shukla 16-13.
While three vice-Presidents were elected unopposed, the two other positions also went to the Srinivasan faction with TC Mathew (Kerala, West Zone) and CK Khanna (Delhi, Central Zone) winning the polls. Khanna defeated the influential Jyotiraditya Scindia, while Mathew edged past Ravi Sawant.
The three who were elected unopposed were Andhra’s G Ganga Raju (South), Assam’s Goutam Roy (East) and ML Nehru (North)
The road for Dalmiya was cleared after former president and NCP leader Sharad Pawar failed to get a proposer from East Zone, prompting the Maratha strongman to pull out of the race.
BJP leader Thakur, it is learnt, won by just one vote over Srinivasan loyalist Patel, a scenario unlikely to have emerged had there not been cross-voting during the election process. It is learnt that two members did not vote at all, while a third who owes allegiance to a leading political party decided to vote for Thakur.
In the case of the joint secretary’s position, both Desai and Choudhary garnered 15 votes each but Shivlal Yadav, who chaired the meeting, tilted the scales in Choudhary’s favour with his casting vote.
However, the fact that other anti-Srinivasan camp candidates lost the elections proved that cross-voting took place only for Thakur.
The BCCI issued a press release announcing the names of the winners for each position but did not divulge their vote share. It also said that audited accounts for the FY 2013–2014 were approved during the proceedings.
The AGM also ratified Srinivasan’s position as the ICC chairman, according to a top official. Another decision taken at the AGM was that Thakur will now represent the BCCI at the ICC’s chief executive committee meetings. The AGM also decided to extend the tenure of the current national selection panel for six more months.
