NEW DELHI: Journalist Rajat Sharma has thrown his hat into the ring for the post of president of the Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA), the elections for which will be held on June 30.
Sharma is editor-in-chief and chairman of Hindi news channel India TV, and a strong supporter of the BJP government at the Centre. He reportedly secured the support of finance minister Arun Jaitley, who had held the post of DDCA president for over a decade and was then the patron till 2014, before deciding to contest the polls.
“My association with Arun Jaitley is for the last 44 years. His contribution to DDCA is immense. I would not step into DDCA without his approval,” Sharma told Indian Express.
“Several cricketer friends and administrators had been persuading me for a long time to step into the DDCA, which I had been resisting. Being a cricket enthusiast I gave in finally,” Sharma said on Wednesday.
Sharma’s panel for contesting the elections will consist of Rakesh Bansal who will fight for the post of vice president, Vinod Tihara (secretary) and Om Prakash Sharma. A statement from his faction stated that the names of rest of the panel would be released later.
Sharma’s candidature is backed by former DDCA treasurer Narinder Batra, who is currently the president of the Indian Olympic Association and the International Hockey Federation. He also has the support of the DDCA’s former president Sneh Bansal, among others.
The dates for the DDCA elections were declared on Tuesday by administrator Justice Vikramajit Sen, who also issued the directive that the polls will be held without the much-criticised proxy voting system.
The proxy system of voting which has been considered as the root cause of corruption in DDCA has been done away with as Justice Sen released an 11-point model of code of conduct for election of members of the executive committee.
