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Vijay Patil elected Mumbai CA chief; Azhar to represent Hyderabad

Last updated on: October 04, 2019 20:02 IST

Vijay Patil

IMAGE: Vijay Patil, son of former Governor and Congress politician Dr D Y Patil, was elected unopposed. Photograph: Vijay Patil/Facebook

Education baron Vijay Patil and Sanjay Naik were elected unopposed as president and secretary respectively of the Mumbai Cricket Association, in Mumbai, on Friday.

The president, vice-president and secretary were elected unopposed while polls were held for the posts of treasurer, joint-secretary and nine members of the Apex Council.

Amol Kale was elected vice-president.

 

Vijay is the son of former Governor and Congress politician Dr D Y Patil.

Shahalam Shaikh, who was named joint-secretary, defeated Sangam Lad by 196 to 121 votes, while Jagdish Achrekar was elected treasurer in a contest against Mayank Khanwala.

The results were announced by MCA electoral officer D N Choudhary.

Unmesh Khanvilkar (241 votes), Ajinkya Naik (201 votes), Gaurav Payyade (180 votes),  Vihang Sarnaik (165 votes), Abhay Hadap (160 votes), Kaushik Godbole (157 votes), Amit Dani (144 votes), Nadim Memon (140 votes) and Khodadad Y  (133 votes) were elected members of the Apex Council.

Later, Patil announced that the Managing Committee unanimously decided to nominate Naik as the MCA nominee for the BCCI AGM on October 23.

"The principal focus of our administration is to make sure that cricket becomes the centre point of all the things we do in this association. We will try to make sure that we will have the right infrastructure in place in order to create a great team,” Patil said, after the first meeting of the council.

"Another area we want to keenly follow and pursue is talent identification, because that is something that needs to be done in a systematic way. We will be consulting with cricketers in order to make sure that we carry out this talent identification, so that good players come out of Mumbai cricketing system," he said.

Patil said the council will discuss all areas that need improvement and that responsibility will be entrusted in the hands of cricketers only.

Asked whether Mumbai should be on the BCCI's Apex Council, Patil said, "Absolutely, I would want a representative of Mumbai to feature on Apex Council, but, as I said, the committee has just been constituted and that is a matter of discussion and deliberation with all concerned individuals."

He said there has to be "pragmatic and practical" approach to the issue of conflict of interests.

Earlier, the voting for the polls started early morning at the MCA lounge, situated at the Wankhede Stadium, and among the early voters were cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar and former India players Sandeep Patil, Sameer Dighe, Vinod Kambli, Pravin Amre, Sanjay Bangar, Ramesh Powar, Nilesh Kulkarni.

Former India skipper Dilip Vengsarkar, Umesh Kulkarni, Sudhir Naik and veteran Mumbai off-spinner Milind Rege were among those who also cast their vote.

This is the first time international cricketers were given voting rights in state association polls.

"Everyone has turned up (to vote) for the interest of Mumbai Cricket Association and whatever Mumbai has been able to achieve in the past so many years... that should continue," Tendulkar said after casting his vote.

Azharuddin to represent Hyderabad at BCCI AGM

Former India captain and newly-elected Hyderabad Cricket Association president Mohammad Azharuddin will represent the state body at the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s Annual General Meeting in Mumbai on October 23.

There were initial reports that former state unit president Shivlal Yadav, a close ally of Tamil Nadu strongman Narayanswami Srinivasan, would represent Hyderabad. However, the new apex body of the HCA decided that it will be Azharuddin who will be its representative-cum-voter in case the BCCI elections take place.

Azharuddin and Cricket Association of Bengal president Sourav Ganguly will, thus, be two former national captains representing their respective state units.

Rajasthan CM Gehlot's son elected RCA president

Vaibhav Gehlot, son of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, was elected president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association as his panel swept all six posts in a tension-ridden election of the state body.

Vaibhav scored a resounding 25-6 victory over Ram Prakash Choudhary to bag the top post. He enjoyed support from C P Joshi and Vaibhav rewarded the outgoing RCA president by making him the chief patron of the association.

After losing the Lok Sabha elections from Jodhpur, Vaibhav was later nominated as treasurer of Rajsamand District Association, paving his entry into the RCA.

Amin Pathan was elected vice-president while Mahendra Sharma became the new secretary.

KK Neemawat and Mahendra Nahar were elected joint-secretaries.

Brajkishore Upadhyaya was elected an executive member.

The challenge of the Lalit Modi faction, led by another senior Congress leader Rameshwar Dudi, lost the sting after three district associations -- Nagaur, Sri Ganganagar and Alwar -- were disqualified by election officer R R Rashmi.

They were suspended by RCA and the nominations filed by their officials were rejected amidst chaos and angry exchanges between the two warring factions.

National selector Gagan Khoda did not turn up for voting.

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