It's official: No TNCA in the BCCI elections

[Torrent Disney]

 

The BCCI's electoral officer has upheld the decision taken by the Committee of the Administrators (CoA) to disqualify three key state associations from participating in the BCCI elections, scheduled for October 23. On Thursday, N Gopalswami, the board's electoral officer, removed Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Maharashtra from the final electoral roll, thus taking away their voting rights.

In another significant move, Gopalswami disqualified Rajeev Shukla and Rajkumar Imo Singh, the nominated representatives of Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association (UPCA) and Manipur Cricket Association respectively.

Shukla had met Gopalswami in person on Wednesday, but the electoral officer disqualified his nomination because he had not undertaken the mandatory three-year cooling off since wrapping up as the IPL chairman in August 2018. Shukla had already served 11 years as an UPCA office bearer before taking up the IPL job in 2016.

Imo Singh, meanwhile, is a Member of the Manipur Legislative Assembly and politicians can no longer be administrators or an office bearers thanks to the changes made in the BCCI constitution last year.

The draft electoral roll, which was announced on October 4, had 38 members including three government-funded institutions: Services, Indian Railways and Association of Indian Universities. All three institutions had originally nominated a representative to participate in the board elections, but as per the new BCCI constitution, only their player associations are allowed to nominate a person.

While announcing the election process, Gopalswami had made it clear that if the nominated person was disqualified, the state association could not appoint a replacement. This was a CoA directive as well. So all five of the UPCA, Manipur Cricket Association, Services, Railways and Universities have also lost their voting rights and can't attend the BCCI annual general meeting that takes place on the day of the elections.