BJP intervention imminent as BCCI grapples with deadlock

KOLKATA: Nineteen months after N Srinivasan first stepped aside from his post as BCCI president and a protracted legal battle that followed, the Supreme Court on Thursday put an end to his controversial reign. With the apex court ruling that BCCI members who have commercial interest cannot contest the ensuing elections in the cricket body till the time they continue to have such interests, Srinivasan has reached a dead end.
The immediate fall-out of the court's ruling seriously impacts Srinivasan's dream of leading the BCCI for a second three-year term.
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It is also bad news for Srinivasan's allies in the BCCI. If Srinivasan is out of the equation, the motley group of his followers will be left leaderless and with no hope whatsoever of conjuring up a simple majority in a 31-member house. Their best bet, in that case, will be to put up a dummy candidate for the president's post and woo the Bharatiya Janata Party which 'controls' eight BCCI units in a bid to cobble up 16 votes needed to win the elections and rule by proxy.
It is an interesting game plan that can be made workable provided the ifs and buts are managed. First and foremost, the ruling group will have to find a candidate for the president's post who is also acceptable to the BJP. It also remains to be seen whether the BJP, which rode to power on the promise of clean governance, will side with Srinivasan, or his group.

On the flip side, it is good news for the rival group in the BCCI headed by Sharad Pawar. The former ICC and BCCI chief on Thursday called upon all Board members to come together and restore the image of Indian cricket.
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Pawar, who is recovering from a back surgery, is reportedly open to contesting for the BCCI president's post for another term. He also has the support of the likes of former BCCI presidents Shashank Manohar and Inderjit Bindra apart from former officials like Ajay Shirke, Sanjay Jagdale and Chirayu Amin, who have a clean image.
The problem is, even his group cannot hope to win a simple majority unless the BJP votes go in their favour.Pawar's stature and credentials are second to none, but his bitter critics are sure to drive home the point that the contentious 6.2.4 clause had been amended during his tenure as BCCI president. The same rule, which allowed BCCI members to hold commercial interests, thereby giving rise to conflict of interest, was struck down by the Supreme Court on Thursday.

The Srinivasan group is toying with the idea of fielding either former ICC and BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya or current vice-president Rajiv Shukla for the president's post. However, there is a trust-deficit as far as Dalmiya is concerned, while the fact that Shukla was the IPL commissioner in the scandalous sixth edition of the T20 meet goes against his candidature.
The dreaded deadlock can only be broken by BJP's intervention. Finance minister Arun Jaitley and BJP president Amit Shah, who is also the chief of the Gujarat Cricket Association, hold the key to BCCI elections which must be completed in six weeks.

Read this story in Hindi: BCCI चुनावों में 'किंगमेकर' की भूमिका में BJP