A war has erupted in the All Indian Chess Federation (AICF) after its President PR Venketrama Raja on Saturday served a showcause notice on the Federation’s all-powerful secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan for committing some technical irregularity in decision-making. Obviously, the Raja faction has hit back on Chauhan for siding with Grandmaster Dibyendu Barua in his crusade to clean up the affairs of West Bengal chess.
Barua had accused West Bengal chess association secretary Atnau Lahiri of engaging in corruption and diverting state fund for chess promotion to his (Lahiri’s) company Global Chess. Barua had also accused Lahiri of banning several top players for criticizing his handling of the chess affairs.
While Chauhan sided with Barua and chess players, Raja formed three-member committee to probe Barua’s charges. Interestingly, he kept Chauhan outside the committee though as per AICF constitution Secretary has to be part of all such committees.
Barua has objected to the composition of the probe committee contending that in-house committee can never fairly probe alleged misconduct of another office-bearer of the Federation. Incidentally, Lahiri is joint secretary of the AICF.
As apprehended by Barua and Chauhan, the three-member committee gave clean chit to Lahiri and authorized him to conduct the election of the state chess association. Barua approached the Kolkata High Court against the order. In a major setback to the AICF, the court appointed two administrators to conduct the elections.
Meanwhile, in another major embarrassment for the Raja faction of the AICF, the Sports Authority of India (SAI) found that Lahiri had submitted fake utilization certification of a national event organized the state association. SAI found that the signature of the chartered account was forged. It asked the AICF to look into the matter and take appropriate action.
In view of the SAI directive, Raja referred the matter to the same committee which had given clean chit to Lahiri and also asked Chauhan to attend its meeting on December 5, Chauhan refused to attend the meeting, asked for setting up a new committee, and suggested that the AICF should file a FIR for faking the utilization certificate.
In his letter to Raja, Chauhan also pointed out that he had raised the issue of the forged utilization certificate in the past but nothing was done against Lahiri.
Irked by Chauhan’s defiance, Raja had now acted against the Secreaty, triggering a full-scale war within the AICF. Chauhan enjoys majority support in the Federation and could count on the backing of most leading chess players. He has convened a meeting of the general body of the Federation on December 22 when he could announce the date of the next election of the office bearers.
When contacted by The Pioneer, Chauhan said he would not comment on the development, but he can confirm that he has received a show cause letter from the President.
“At this stage I would not say anything. I’ve always stood by players and continue to do that. We should treat a player like Dibyendu Barua with a little more respect and gratitude,” he said.