Rohit Pawar, a legislator who is also veteran cricket administrator-political heavyweight Sharad Pawar’s grandson, has been elected as the president of the Maharashtra Cricket Association.
Rohit was elected unopposed for the election of office-bearers among the 16 elected councillors during the election conducted at the MCA International Stadium at Pune on Sunday.
Rohit, 37, was elected as MLA from Karjat-Jamkhed constituency in 2019. Having come up with a state-of-the-art cricket stadium in his family bastion of Baramati, he had entered into the election fray from the ruling Ajay Shirke faction.
The prolonged MCA election saw a clean sweep of the Shirke Group despite all the existing office-bearers being barred from contesting due to the constitutional provisions.
The MCA election sees 155 voters divided in various categories electing 16 councillors from nine categories. The 16 elected councillors then have to contest the election. Rohit and Sunil Mutha had former Maharashtra captain Shantanu Sugwekar and Abhishek Bokey as contenders from the life member categories.
Of the 24 votes that were cast for the two posts from the category, Rohit bagged 22 while Mutha won 21. Sugwekar and Bokey, a distant grandson of Pawar Sr., the duo who had pressed for the much-delayed constitutional amendments, had to settle for two and three votes, respectively.
Once all the elected councillors, barring industrialist Atul Jain who won from the opposition faction, were from the ruling faction, the office-bearers were elected unopposed.
The office-bearers President: Rohit Pawar, Vice-president: Kiran Samant, Secretary: Shubhendra Bhandarkar, Joint secretary: Santosh Bobde, Treasurer: Sanjay Bajaj.
