BCCI committee to oppose one-state, one-vote clause

Sabi Hussain

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 28

BCCI’s newly-constituted seven-member committee to look into the ‘difficulties’ in carrying out the Supreme Court’s orders on reforms may agree on implementing the contentious ‘age and tenure’ clause of the Lodha Committee recommendations.

According to a committee member, however, the committee is unlikely to agree to accept three other critical recommendations — one-state one-vote, CAG audit of BCCI’s accounts, and limiting the senior selection committee to three members. He also stated that the committee would hold its first meeting in the national capital on July 1.

All the Lodha Committee recommendations have already been approved by the Supreme Court through two separate orders of July 18, 2016, and January 3 and 4, 2017. However, BCCI’s member state units (barring Vidarbha and Tripura) have been objecting to some of the recommendations. Some of these units have individually filed petitions in the Court to review its orders.

“We would have agreed on the age and tenure recommendations, along with other reforms, at the Mumbai Special General Meeting (SGM) itself. But then (former BCCI president) N Srinivasan and his coterie of loyalists opposed any such move and tried to sabotage the proceedings,” the committee member informed.

“Look, practically speaking, nobody wants to face the Court’s wrath. The impression that has gone to the outside world is that this particular committee has been formed to create impediments in the implementation of the recommendations,” he added. “The reality, however, is that the committee would propose to the BCCI to accept most of the recommendations, barring the three contentious ones. These three would be very difficult to implement, with the majority of the BCCI state units holding the view that the Court should pass a direction in this regard. There is a consensus among most of the BCCI members to accept the age and tenure guidelines.”

The age and tenure recommendation recommends an age cap of 70 years for officials and a cooling-off period of three years after every three-year term.

States and votes

The objection against the one-state, one-vote recommendation is that it would reduce two from the three units each of Maharashtra and Gujarat from Full Members to Associate Members. Maharashtra has three associations – Maharashtra, Mumbai and Vidarbha, while Gujarat has Gujarat, Baroda and Saurashtra. 

The Lodha Committee had suggested that three votes each from these states be reduced to two each, with the associations getting to represent themselves as Full Member for one year on a rotational basis.

“You can’t treat historically rich associations like Mumbai or Saurashtra the same way like Mizoram or Meghalaya, who are the new entrants. It’s as simple as that,” the member said.

Selection panel

With the issue of the composition of the national selection committee, BCCI wants to return to the old system of having five zonal selectors, as opposed to the current arrangement of three selectors.

The committee has been directed by BCCI to submit its report by July 10, before the scheduled Court hearing on July 14. BCCI will thereafter call an SGM to deliberate on the suggestions in the report and approve them. The report would then be submitted to the Committee of Administrators (CoA), who may or may not accept BCCI’s latest manoeuvring.

Senior BCCI office-bearer Rajeev Shukla (chairman), former India captain Sourav Ganguly, TC Mathew (former Kerala Cricket Association president), Naba Bhattacharjee (Meghalaya Cricket Association Secretary), Jay Shah (Gujarat Cricket Association secretary and son of BJP president Amit Shah), BCCI treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry and acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary are members of the committee.