Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president-elect Abhay Singh Chautala on Tuesday held Randhir Singh responsible for the national Olympic body’s suspension by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and demanded the former secretary-general’s immediate withdrawal from the IOC.
Training his guns at Randhir, Chautala said the IOA executive board will pass resolution in its AGM on Wednes, demanding the veteran sports administrator’s removal from the IOC.
“From the start to finish Randhir is responsible for the entire mess. To save his chair he can do anything. He should resign first (as IOC member from India) because he has spread all the dirt in Indian sports,” Chautala said reacting to IOC’s decision to suspend IOA because of government interference.
“Randhir should withdraw (his membership) from the IOC immediately. In tomorrow’s AGM of IOA we will demand Randhir’s withdrawal from the IOC because he is no longer a member of the executive board of IOA,” he said.
“We will pass a resolution to this effect in tomorrow’s meeting and then sent it across to IOC.”
Chautala said the suspension was a “one-sided decision.”
“We had written to them, asking them to give some time to our two-member committee to tell them about our position,” he said. “They’ve not listened to our side. We will go to IOC again and explain to them how elections were carried out here.”
Sports Minister Jitendra Singh also termed the IOC’s move as an “unfortunate decision” for Indian sports community.
“It is a very unfortunate decision for the sporting community. I still don’t know the details but once we learnt about the mess we wrote to the IOC but they never responded,” he said.
