Even during the corona crisis and lockdown, a faction feud is raging in the All India Chess Federation. In a show of strength, the faction led by Bharat Singh Chauhan conducted an extraordinary General Body meeting of the AICF through video conferencing on Wednesday where it was decided to approach the Union Sports Ministry to hold the elections of the Federation under its supervision.
The GB also set up a five-member committee of senior players and officials to look after day-to-day affair of the AICF. Members of the committee are: member committee of Vipnesh Bharadwaj, Naresh Sharma, Bhavesh Patel Neeraj Mishra and Bhagyshree Thipsay.
The General Body meeting was held on the request of as many 12 state units. It was attended by 44 members representing 22 affiliated units, who felt that the Sports ministry should step in to hold the AICF elections because of the ongoing legal battle within the two factions of the Federation. The Madras High Court had stayed the outcome of the February 10 election of new office-bearers.
The 12 state units took the imitative to convene the meeting in view of the ongoing faction fighting in the federation and several arbitrary and illegal decisions taken by PR Venketrama Raja and DV Sundar, who have ceased to be President and Vice-president of the Federation now. The meeting was conducted as per provision of Section 11 of AICF constitution and Section 28 of Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act 1975. Senior AICF officials. Member Mr Naresh Sharma chaired the meeting.
The Madras High Court had appointed retired Supreme Court Justice F M Ibrahim Kalifulla as returning officer to conduct the AICF elections. Justice F M Ibrahim Kalifulla duly conducted the elections and declared Ajay H Patel as president, Bharat Singh Chauhan as secretary, Naresh Sharma as treasurer, M Arun Singh as joint secretary, and Vipnesh Bharadwaj as vice president.
After the new office-bearers assumed office, the High Court set aside the election process on a plea of Raja and directed to Kalifulla to convene a Special General Body Meeting to conduct fresh polls. Since then AICF is in a mess and all its activities have come to a halt.
The fact that only 7 association and disputed officials like Mr Raja and Mr Vijay Deshpande opposed the meeting, showed that they don’t enjoy majority support and were trying to muddy the water for selfish gains.
The meeting decided to probe how without any approval of the AICF Central council or GB, Mr Raja and Mr. Vijay Deshpande tried to change the bank signatories , prompting the Indian bank, Chennai to freeze the Federation account. The members felt that the it must enquired as to how on March 31— within a day after illegal appointment of Vijay Deshpande as Secretary, Sundar visited the bank with signature of Deshpande, who is based in Maharashtra, when the country was under lockdown.
The GB also decided to restore the affiliation of Maharashtra and Rajasthan Chess Associations, and disaffiliated Andhra Pradesh chess association for not paying the prize of chess players despite several reminders b y the Federation.
The GB decided that the recently held election of the Bengal state chess association was illegal since it was not conducted as per the AICF bye laws and the country's sports code. The GB decided to disaffiliate the Bengal chess association for not making suitable amendment s to their bye laws as per the AICF constitution and for not paying back an outstanding sum of Rs 7.5 lakh to the Federation. The GB decided to form an ad-hoc committee to run the affairs of the associations.
The members welcomed the initiative by FIDE to resolve the ongoing dispute issue within the Federation and decided to start online program for coaches, players and arbite.