The biennial elections of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) on June 17 will see a handful of political heavyweights of national and regional parties in the fray.
For the first time, perhaps in the history of the 80-year-old provincial cricket association, a group named ‘Cricket First’ officially announced that the Shiv Sena is not only campaigning for it, but it has also given it two leaders — Mumbai South-Central Lok Sabha MP Rahul Shewale and Ovala-Majiwada (Thane Dist) MLA Pratap Sarnaik — as candidates for the managing committee and vice-president.
On Sunday afternoon the entire ‘Cricket First’ group led by Vijay Patil was at Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray’s Bandra-East residence at Matoshree. Mr. Thackeray is scheduled to address ‘Cricket First’s’ group meeting at a five-star hotel in South Mumbai on Monday.
“Uddhav Thackeray said he and the Shiv Sena is backing the ‘Cricket First’ group and that its supporters should vote for the full panel,’’ said former India fast bowler Abey Kuruvilla who is the fray for the vice-president’s post.
Advantage Pawar
The ruling group called Pawar-Mahaddalkar Group, has fielded the city’s BJP chief and MLA Ashish Shelar for the post of vice-president. The NCP chief Sharad Pawar is the candidate for the president’s post.
Mr. Pawar has the advantage of having served the association as president for 12 years (2001-2011 and 2013-15). At a group meeting on Saturday, he asked the MCA members to show loyalty and gets all its 17 candidates elected to ensure that “the Wankhede Stadium remains the prime centre of cricket activity.”
MCA in politicians' hold
Political leaders have been president of the MCA for near about four and half decades of the last 50 years with the Congress party’s Sesharao Wankhede enjoying the longest stint of 24 years from 1963. Thereafter Shiv Sena’s Manohar Joshi was president for eight years after which Mr. Pawar was the president for five consecutive terms lasting ten years. Vilasrao Deshmukh was president for a little over one year before he died to a liver ailment. Mr. Pawar was elected unopposed in 2013 for a two year term.
On Sunday evening, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis met the Pawar-Mahaddalkar group panel at his official residence at Varsha. “Ashish Sheklar organised the meeting and the Chief Minister did not say to us that he was not supporting Sharad Pawar,” said P.V. Shetty, Jt. Hon. Secretary, MCA.
The cricketers in the two groups are Dilip Vengsarkar (Pawar Group), Abey Kuruvilla, Praveen Amre, Lalchand Rajput and Sanjay Patil (Cricket First), but strangely neither group has fielded a woman candidate.
The 329 voters of the MCA are drawn from schools, colleges, clubs and corporate offices and the candidates try to woo a large group of voters from the Muslim, Gujarati and Parsee communities.
