The majority view within Indian sport’s most powerful administrative body seems to be that Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley would play a key role in the BCCI elections, though he will not be among the contestants for the top post.
“It will depend on Mr. Jaitley’s thinking,” said P.V. Shetty, joint secretary, MCA.
It is the East Zone’s turn to nominate a candidate, and there are those who believe that all the six full members of the BCCI from the East Zone — Bengal, Assam, Odisha, Jharkhand, Tripura and National Cricket Club — would support Mr. Srinivasan, who is also president of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association.
ADVERTISEMENT
A candidate needs to be proposed and seconded from among the above six at the next AGM, apart from having been a past or present office-bearer or vice-president.
Mr. Srinivasan’s term would have ended in September 2014, but Mr. Jaitley’s hectic political and government commitments seem to have taken him out of the equation and offered the incumbent (sidelined because of the IPL-related court matters) another three-year run till 2017. The BCCI had amended its election by-laws to enable Mr. Jaitley (DDCA/North Zone) to take over as BCCI president four months ago, but Mr. Jaitley did not even contest the last DDCA elections.
Mr. Pawar was the BCCI president from 2005 to 2008 and the ICC president from 2008 to 2010.
ADVERTISEMENT
On January 22, after passing an order on a public interest litigation petition on the IPL, the Supreme Court set a six-week deadline for the BCCI to hold its AGM/election.