An emergency Working Committee meeting in Chennai on Sunday afternoon is expected to show some clarity on BCCI president N Srinivasan’s fate. Speculation is rife that he will announce his resignation at this huddle after having been increasingly isolated within the administrative body following the arrest of his son-in-law, Gurunath Meiyappan, in the IPl spot-fixing scandal.
The talk of Srinivasan quitting on Sunday gained momentum when early on Saturday BCCI vice-president Arun Jaitley told reporters to “wait for a day. You will hear something signifcant.” By the evening, Srinivasan was compelled to prepone this meeting from next Saturday to this Sunday. Initially scheduled for 11 am, it will now be held at 2.30 pm. This will be BCCI’s second such meeting since May 16 when the spot-fixing scandal broke out.
Rajeev Shukla, meanwhile, quit as IPl chairman on Saturday even as Srinivasan, sources said, had conveyed to the members a face-saving formula as a pre-condition to resign from BCCI chief post ‘for now’.
“I’ve decided to quit as IPl chairman. It’s a decision I was pondering over for some time. Sanjay Jagdale and Ajay Shirke resigned in the best interest of Indian cricket and I thought this is the right time for me,” he said.
The BCCI’s Joint Secretary Anurag Thakur, said, “We have enough issues to discuss and all of them will be discussed at the meeting. It became my responsibility to initiate a call for the meeting once the secretary resigned.”
According to sources, the India Cements boss has indicated to BCCI members that he would “step aside” and not step down till the probe into his son-in-law’s role gets over. He has reportedly made it clear that, in the interim set-up, Shashank Manohar would not replace him as president. This indicates that, in all probability, a TNCA man would hold the post of interim president of BCCI and that could be Shivlal Yadav, who happens to be the senior most vice-president in the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association.
Though the selection of the ad hoc president depends entirely on Working Committee’s decision, the other names doing the rounds were of BCCI vice-president Arun Jaitley and former BCCI boss Jagmohan Dalmiya.
It is learnt that Srinivasan has also demanded that he should continue to represent India at ICC meetings for this interim period.
Sources also say that Srinivasan is rooting for the acceptance of the resignations of Ajay Shirke and Sanjay Jagdale as Treasurer and Secretary respectively, by the Working Committee members. It is learnt that these members who have all by now joined the chant for his resignation, are unlikely to give in to his pre-conditions.
The other important issue that the meeting will discuss is the status of the three-member probe panel as one of the members — Jagdale — has already resigned from his post. Former BCCI president AC Muthiah on Saturday called for a dissolution of the inquiry commission in the wake of Jagdale's resignation. "Whoever appointed the three-member committee will realise the total illegality of constitution of the panel and dissolve the committee rather than create more confusion and embarrass the two retired judges of Madras High Court by filling up the vacancy created by the resignation of Mr Jadgale," Muthiah said in a statement from Chennai.
It is learnt that the BCCI members are not in favour of ignoring Jagdale and Shirke in the interim panel and are unlikely to accept their resignations.
Top Board members are, instead, working on a strategy to force Srinivasan to step down, at least till investigation is completed. If he refuses to quit, though that is highly unlikely, most Board officials are in favour of mass resignations to trigger a constitutional crisis within the BCCI and force Srinivasan's hand.
Another possibility is that a Special General Body or an Extraordinary General Meeting of the BCCI will be convened to initiate impeachment proceedings against Srinivasan. Even though this requires only 10 members to write in favour of bringing in an impeachment motion, they will find it difficult to get the 3/4th majority required to remove the BCCI president.