Dalmiya elected BCCI president, Anurag secretary

Chennai, March 2: After a gap of over 10 years, veteran cricket administrator Jagmohan Dalmiya made an uncontested comeback as full-time president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) at its 85th annual general meeting (AGM) here on Monday. As per BCCI rules, it was the turn of the east zone associations this year to nominate candidates for the elections. The former International Cricket Council (ICC) president, whose previous tenure as BCCI chief ended in 2004, was a 'neutral' candidate from both the factions in the board. While one camp was led by sidelined board president N. Srinivasan, the other camp was led by Maharashtra strongman and former ICC boss Sharad Pawar. Apart from the 74-year-old Dalmiya, the other new entrant is Haryana's Anirudh Choudhary who has been appointed the new treasurer while Himachal Pradesh's Anurag Thakur was named the board secretary. Anurag, a nominee from the Pawar lobby, won the secretary post by one vote. His opponent was Baroda's Sanjay Patel, favoured by Srinivasan. Anirudh, belonging to the Srinivasan camp, defeated Uttar Pradesh's Rajeev Shukla, a former BCCI vice president, for the post of treasurer. Jharkhand State Cricket Association boss Amitabh Choudhary, from the Srinivasan camp, was elected joint secretary after he edged out Pawar's ally Chetan Desai in a tie. Interim president and chairperson Shivlal Yadav exercised his vote in favour of the former. Madhya Pradesh's Jyotiraditya Scindia from the Pawar camp, lost out in the race for the central zone's vice president to C.K. Khanna of the Delhi & Disrict Cricket Association (DDCA). Kerala Cricket Association's T.C. Mathew outvoted Pawar's candidate Ravi Sawant to become the vice president from West Zone. M.L. Nehru (North Zone), Gautam Roy (East Zone) and Ganga Raju (South Zone) became new vice presidents of their respective zones. Dalmiya's elevation to the position was necessitated by Srinivasan being forced to stay away from the election owing to a Supreme Court directive. Srinivasan was barred by the Supreme Court from contesting the election following the Indian Premier League (IPL) spot fixing scam. He is a nominee of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA).