Congress MP Ranjib Biswal and 73-year-old Asirbad Behera relinquished their respective posts of president and honorary secretary of the Odisha Cricket Association (OCA) on Wednesday, two days after the Supreme Court sacked the BCCI bosses with an aim to make the State associations fall in line with the Justice lodha Committee recommendations.
Along with Biswal and Behera, other members of the OCA, including 11 vice-presidents, four joint secretaries and treasurer Satya Mohanty, also tendered their resignations from the association, thereby paving way for fresh elections to the richest BCCI-affiliated sporting body of the State.
The OCA had suspended its quadrennial elections scheduled in October last year when the BCCI had filed a review petition in the Supreme Court after the lodha Committee recommended that politicians and government officials should stay away from cricketing boards. Age cap of 70 years and terms not exceeding nine continuous years in the BCCI were also among other recommendations.
Both Biswal and Behera were ‘unfit’ to head the OCA as per the recommendations since Biswal was officiating as OCA president continuously for over 12 years in three consecutive terms. And on the other hand, exceeding the age cap, Behera had been the secretary of the association since the year 2000.
Other elected members of the OCA executive council, including treasurer Satya Mohanty, were also found to be ‘unfit’ to be in the association for one or the other recommendations of the lodha Committee, and they put in their papers en masse to pave way for fresh elections to the council, probably in February this year.
Meanwhile, for the doubtful upcoming India-England ODI match scheduled to be held here at the Barabati Stadium on January 19, Behera and his outgoing OCA team would oversee that the match is conducted successfully under the OCA organising committee headed by local MlA Debashis Samantray of BJD.