Ousted BCCI office-bearers to meet in Bengaluru

The office-bearers, who have been unseated by the Lodha recommendations and the subsequent Supreme Court order of July 18 (2016), will meet in Bengaluru on Saturday to take stock of the situation.

The representatives of one or two full-members, who would soon become associate members, have also been invited by a full-member from South Zone which has taken the leadership role and convened the meeting. “I got a call requesting me to be present in Bengaluru on Saturday. But I don’t know for what purpose this meeting has been called,” said an official of an institution which is a full-member.

Two more senior members of the BCCI — a former functionary and a current office-bearer — confirmed that they will attend the meeting, but did not know why it had been convened.

“This is not an official meeting. The ODI and T20 series are approaching and a lot of things need to be discussed. Two warm-up matches will be played at the Cricket Club of India (CCI) on January 8 and 10, and the first ODI in Pune on January 15.

“The CCI is soon to be relegated as associate member and there is an issue about the representative from Maharashtra. What if the CCI refuses to host matches in the future? What if some of the States refuse to give their venues for international matches? The meeting could be to plan a strategy,” said a very senior functionary who, too, has faced the axe in his State.

It is understood that the initiative was taken in order to find out whether sufficient numbers can be mustered to offset the threat from East Zone, whose full membership tally with voting rights would go up after the inclusion of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim, Nagaland, and Bihar. Assam, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bengal and Tripura are already full members of the BCCI.

Srinivasan-Pawar meeting

Sources revealed that former BCCI presidents N. Srinivasan and Sharad Pawar met recently and discussed a variety of issues, and the Bengaluru meeting is expected to chart out the next course of action.

The name of former BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel has also figured as a candidate for a senior functionary’s post, but the members owing allegiance to Srinivasan said they had no idea of such a move.

“What wrong have I done? I have suffered the worst because of the Lodha recommendations. I will go to Bengaluru just to know what is being planned,” said a full-member representative from West Zone.