: In what was seen as an open defiance of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) went through with its elections as scheduled on Wednesday.
Abhay Singh Chautala (president), Lalit K. Bhanot (secretary-general) and N. Ramachandran (treasurer) were declared elected unopposed, while Virendra Nanavati was also unopposed while taking the senior vice-president’s post.
The rest of the places in the Executive Council were filled through elections supervised by a three-member commission comprising retired High Court judges.
The IOC had stated on Tuesday that the IOA was not entitled to hold any elections without its prior approval, but the IOA stuck to its stand that it was going ahead with the process as per Delhi High Court orders.
It looked as though the IOA was prepared to face the music and possibly further sanctions from the IOC with this act of defiance. Quite significantly, the Randhir Singh faction did not attend the Annual General Meeting that preceded the elections.
Out of the 183 votes, 167 were cast for the posts that were contested. Eight ballots — three of Indian Hockey Federation, three of Gymnastics Federation of India and two of the Haryana Olympic Association — were kept sealed as per a court order.
Vijay Kumar Malhotra, who chaired the AGM as acting president, said that the IOA had gone ahead with the elections since it could not go against the court order.
The IOA officials discounted the possibility of approaching the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to fight the suspension imposed by the IOC. The general refrain was there was no question of having a confrontation with the IOC.
Keywords: IOA suspension, IOC ban, sports code, V K Malhotra, Olympic charter
It seems the IOA is playing with fire. The IOC directive seemed a
touch harsh, but it's the supreme authority in the Olympic movement,
and defying its diktat should do us no good; the role of Randhir Singh
is also questionable. The Government had made sensible suggestions to
revamp the sports bodies by restricting the tenure of officials and
other measures, which ought to have been incorporated in their
constitution. But that ruffled too many feathers and alarmed the
vested interests, which made them get into a needless confrontation
with the sports ministry.For decades, base nepotism was allowed to
prevail, the federations did little to raise India's stock in the
world of sports, and now no tears will be shed if they are cornered.
The last straw is electing to a prime position a scam-tainted official
who should not have been seen within miles of any sports field.Our
sports officialdom is in a mess of its own making. India's Olympic
prospects have, sadly, got a severe beating.
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