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India’s legendary athlete PT Usha is all set to be “elected uncontested” as Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president at the executive body elections on Saturday.
“Since there are only one candidate each for the posts of President, Sr Vice president, vice president (male), vice president (female), treasurer, joint secretary (male) and executive council member (SOMs) no voting shall be required for these posts and these candidates shall be declared ‘Elected Uncontested’ as per rule 9.1 of IOA election byelaws,” as per the notification issued by assistant returning officer Tapas Kumar Bhattacharya on Friday.
Usha, 58, will be the first woman president of the IOA. She won four gold medals at the Asian Games (1982, 1984) and narrowly missed an Olympic medal in 1984 Los Angeles Games when she finished 4th in 400m hurdles. She has been running the Usha School of Athletics in Balussery, Kerala. Usha was also nominated to the Rajya Sabha in July this year by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Besides, Usha, Ajay H Patel (Sr Vice President), Rajlaxmi Singh Deo, Gagan Narang (Vice Presidents), and Sahdev Yadav (Treasurer), Kalyan Chaubey (Joint Secretary). Narang was nominated to the general assembly by the Athletes Commission (AC).
Elections will therefore take place for the posts of joint secretary (female) and four posts of executive committee members.
Alaknanda Ashok and Suman Kaushik are in fray for the post of joint secretary (female). Alaknanda is nominated by the Badminton Federation of India while Kaushik represents Netball Federation of India.
There are eight candidates for four posts of executive council. They are Amitabh Sharma, Bhupender Singh Bajwa, Cyrus Poncha, Harjinder Singh, Harpal Singh, Parminder Singh Dhindsa, Rohit Rajpal and Vitthal Shirgaonkar.
Two former players Dola Banerjee and Yogeshwar Dutt have already been selected to the executive council by the Athletes Commission (AC). Banerjee, who won World Cup individual gold in 2007, and Dutt, who battled fought injuries in his career to clinch an Olympic bronze in 2012, are among the eight Sportspersons of Outstanding merit chosen by the AC. Usha is also one of SOMs selected.
Altogether, the IOA executive body will constitute 13 members, while two members are nominated by the Athletes Commission.
The IOA electoral college comprising 77members will be eligible to cast their votes. It includes two nominations each (one male and one female) from 33 National Sports Federations, eight SOMs, two nominations by the Athletes Commission (Narang and PV Sindhu) and IOC member in India, Nita Ambani.
Elections are being held as per the amended IOA constitution that puts greater thrust on bringing sportspersons in the administrative role, besides having reserve seats for female administrators ( four of the 15 IOA office bearers must be female members).
The elections will be overseen by returning officer Umesh Sinha, former secretary general Election Commission of India.
IOC to wait till election for final verdict
On Tuesday, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board said that “significant progress” was made by the IOA with regards to the elections but preferred to wait till the conclusion of the election for a final say on the matter. The IOA elections were due for a year and the IOC had issued a stern warning to conduct the election by December. It also put on hold the IOC Session scheduled to be held in India next year.
“The EB took note of the significant progress made in the past few weeks to implement an agreed roadmap, including the adoption of the revised IOA Constitution, aimed at improving the internal governance of IOA in close collaboration and coordination with a former judge appointed by the Supreme Court of India to monitor the whole process. The EB will wait till the last process until the last step of the process which is the IOA election which is due to take place on the 10th of December and make sure that they are duly completed,” said James McLeod, Director of Olympic Solidarity and NOC Relations of IOC.
“The EB will wait until the very last step of the process (i.e. the IOA elections, to take place on 10 December) is duly completed, and delegates to the IOC administration the task of confirming the IOC’s position after the IOA elections, and subsequently confirming whether the 2023 IOC Session will take place in Mumbai.”
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