MUMBAI: A defiant and unrepentant N. Srinivasan, the controversial president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Sunday refused to resign, though he agreed to ‘step aside’ temporarily till the completion of a probe into the spot-fixing scandal.
In a messy new arrangement, the crisis-ridden BCCI decided to bring back another controversial former chief, Jagmohan Dalmiya, who will lead a four-member ‘interim’ body to run the show. While Srinivasan will not be involved in the day to day affairs of the board, he managed to keep away rivals backed by Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, who has been gunning for him.
The stormy BCCI meet in Chennai saw a realignment of forces in the faction-ridden board with BJP leader Arun Jaitley virtually teaming up with union minister Rajeev Shukla of the Congress, who quit as chairman of the Indian Premier League on Saturday, to trounce the Sharad Pawar camp. Two other key office-bearers, Sanjay Jagdale and Ajay Shirke, who also quit on Friday, refused to reconsider their decision.
While Pawar is not on the BCCI now, he has many supporters in the board who have been demanding Srinivasan’s scalp. But Sunday’s meeting appears to have come as a blow to Pawar, who has been a key opponent of Dalmiya.Srinivasan told reporters that the meeting was smooth and none of the 24 members who attended it sought his resignation. But I.S. Bindra, the chief of the Punjab Cricket Association, claimed that he was the only member to have demanded Srinivasan’s resignation.
The image of Indian cricket took a severe beating last month after the surfacing of the worst-ever scandal involving spot-fixing of some of the matches of the IPL. Initially, the Delhi police arrested three bowlers of the Rajasthan Royals team on charges of spot-fixing. This was followed by the arrest by Mumbai police of Gurunath Meiyappan, Srinivasan’s son-in-law, and the CEO of Chennai Super Kings, one of the key teams of the IPL, on match-fixing charges. – KahleejNews
