NEW DELHI: Rajat Sharma, founder chairman of Hindi news channel India TV, has been elected president of the scandal-ridden Delhi and Districts Cricket Association (DDCA), defeating India’s 1983 World Cup winning player Madan Lal by a massive 517 votes.
The third candidate in the running was Supreme Court Bar Association president Vikas Singh who got just 232 votes.
Sharma received 1,521 votes in comparison to Lal’s 1,004 in elections held Monday, PTI reports. His group won all the 12 seats in the association in an outright victory.
Sharma’s was always on the cards as he had the backing of the ruling BJP as well as the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Narinder Batra, who also happens to be a former DDCA treasurer. The only surprise really is the scale of his victory.
A big positive from Sharma’s win is the likely end of BCCI acting president CK Khanna’s near 30-year long rule in the DDCA as he was enjoying extreme power for nearly 30 years. This is due to the fact that his wife, Shashi Khanna lost the vice-presidential candidature by 278 votes to Rakesh Bansal, who is the younger brother of former DDCA president Sneh Bansal.
“The moment Sharma got blessings from a senior cabinet minister, there was no chance in hell for any other candidate to win this election. What was not expected was a clean panel sweep. It will be good that Sharma will get a free hand to run the body. This also means that CK Khanna’s reign in DDCA ends unless he strikes some deal with Sharma,” a senior DDCA official told PTI.
After his landslide win, Sharma spoke about bringing transparency and honesty to DDCA; a cricket body whose office-bearers — according to recent internal audit report — have been involved in unauthorised transfer and embezzlement of funds amounting to tens of millions of of rupees. “We want a transparent system and our panel has decided to work honestly. We want to give respect to cricketers. They have helped the game grow, they have given to the country whatever they can. Now, it’s our turn to pay them back,” Indian Express quoted the 61-year-old honcho turned cricket administrator as having said.
That is easier said than done. Six of the fresh faces in the newly-elected DDCA panel happen to be relatives — sons, wives or brothers — of former officials, some of whom are tainted, IE notes.
Nearly 3,000 voters had turned up for the elections after the abolition of the proxy system was decided upon.
Former sports committee head Vinod Tihara was named the DDCA secretary and he is expected to run the daily affairs of the association, having a big say in all the representative teams especially the Ranji Trophy and men’s age group.
Sharma and Tihara confirmed to PTI that Indian batsman, Gautam Gambhir will be in the role of an observer who will be taking major cricketing decisions such as the members who should be a part of its cricket affairs committee.
“The elected members will look after administrative side but cricketing decisions will be taken by cricketer. Gautam is one of the biggest names in Delhi cricket. It’s only natural, he will play a major role. You can put it on record, Gautam will take all policy decisions with regards to cricket,” Tihara said during an interaction at the Kotla.
For treasurer’s post, Om Prakash Sharma beat Deepak Singhal by 1365-1075 votes.
Sanjay Bhardwaj was elected for the director’s post (first-class cricketer) while Renu Khanna became the woman director.
