New Delhi, Dec 30 (IANS) Expectedly, the incumbent Sneh Prakash Bansal Group outproxied a group of cricketers led by Bishan Bedi in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) election here Monday.
Bansal, a confidant of outgoing president Arun Jaitley, succeeded him, defeating Bedi by an overwhelming 3433 to 285 out of a total 4300 votes. Jaitley did not seek re-election citing his political commitments in the year of General Election in 2014.
The disparity in the results reaffirmed the clout of the Bansal faction in the DDCA.
The result was a foregone conclusion and it did not come as a surprise to even Bedi’s group which had former Delhi captains and India cricketers Kirti Azad, Madan Lal and Surinder Khanna. They contested the election on the plank of of corruption, accusing the ruling group of gross mismanagement and promoting proxy culture. They even staged a protest dharna outside the Ferozeshah Kotla Monday.
Chander Kishore Khanna, Chetan Chauhan and Ganga Parshad Gupta were elected as vice-presidents at the DDCA’s AGM. The other top office-bearers elected were Anil Khanna (secretary), Sunil Dev (sports secretary), Sunil Kumar Jain (club secretary) and Ravinder Manchanda (treasurer).
Former Delhi High Court Judge S.K. Mahajan was the chief election officer.
“The result shows that that we have done good work,” Bansal told IANS.
“I don’t understand why Mr. Bedi and others were making a big deal about proxies. The members were free to vote in person or by proxy which is legal as per the Company’s Act. Even a year and a half ago, I had told Bedi and company to help the DDCA, but they did not come forward. Now it has been proved that their motive was to capture the DDCA.”
Asked whether Jaitley will continue to be a part of the DDCA, Bansal said: “He is very much part of the body. He has been a pillar of strength for me in the last 12 years. We will be deciding on his role in the working committee in the first week of January.”
Bedi, on his part said, he was committed to seeing a “corruption free” DDCA.
“The process has just started. There is no looking back now. We will take the fight to a logical end and you will also see the results. This anti corruption wave is a very good thing that has happened in Delhi. I don’t see how DDCA is going to escape that,” Bedi told IANS referring to his meeting with corruption crusader Arvind Kejriwal last week.
Azad said they were exploring legal options. “We have enough documents to take the DDCA to court.”