Hockey India schedules election in July

Hockey India (HI) on Monday announced it would hold its elections in July. No date was however fixed.

After a special general council meeting here, HI Secretary-General Narinder Batra claimed that affiliations to 25 State/UT units and four institutional boards were unanimously ratified at the meeting.

No media briefing

Batra claimed through an official release that 29 member units attended Monday's meeting. A total of 70 representatives, including 30 women, attended, he said. No press briefing was held.

The meeting was also attended by the Government observer, S.P.S. Tomar, and an observer from the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), Kuldeep Vats. The units whose affiliations were ratified were: Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Andaman and Nicobar, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Assam, Orissa, Uttarakhand, Mizoram, Manipur, Jharkhand, Goa, Puducherry, Delhi, Punjab, Kerala, Rajasthan and Bengal.

Besides, affiliations of institutional boards (with voting rights), Railways, Services, Association of Indian Universities and Air India, were also ratified. According to the release, affiliations of Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka were also ratified subject to the decision of their pending court cases.

The Karnataka State Hockey Association Secretary, K. Krishnamurthy, when contacted in Bangalore, however, said that following a stay granted by the Karnataka High Court, “status quo” should have been maintained, and his body formed in December 2009, should have been invited to attend the HI meeting.

Krishnamurthy was part of the Special General Body meeting held by the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) here on June 6 last.

That body decided to initiate a dialogue with the Indian Women's Hockey Federation (IWHF), which also later expressed its intentions to seek a merger with the men's federation.

Monday's move by HI, in getting the affiliations ratified, could be seen as a step towards gaining legitimacy even as the IHF and the IWHF claim that they continue to be the authorised bodies to run hockey affairs. HI has the recognition from the International Hockey Federation (FIH) that enables it to enter Indian teams in international competitions.

The HI meeting also approved all the constitutional amendments proposed, including the one that deals with associate members.

It also approved the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Code and agreed to have five per cent representatives of players, with voting power, in its body.