The All India Chess Federation (AICF) elections, scheduled to be held online on January 4, again seem to be headed towards rough weather when Bharat Singh Chauhan faction have filed an objection over the eligibility of former AICF President PR Venkatrama Raja and candidate for general secretary’s position, Ravindra Dongre.
The court-appointed Returning Officer Justice (retired) K Kannan has released the list of nominated candidates for 15 posts, which includes names of PR Venkatrama Raja (Tamil Nadu) and Ravidra Dongre (Maharashtra).
The Chauhan camp contended that the nominations of these two in the electoral roll and later in the list of candidates is in violation of country’s Sports Code and should be rejected.
Quoting an RTI reply by the Ministry of Sports, Government of India, the appeal said that elected representatives of the state associations should be eligible to represent their respective state association in the National Sports Federation (NSF) meetings. And, those representing elected representatives of the state associations can only be eligible to contest elections.
“…Only such persons who are the elected members of the executive body of the State/UT Associations can only be authorized by the President of such Association to represent in the meetings of the NSFs including casting of vote in the election of the NSFs,” the Sports Ministry said in its reply to a RTI query.
The BS Chauhan group claim that the names of Raja and Dongre should not be in the voters’ list because they are not elected representative of their respective state associations. Only those whose names appear in the voters’ list are eligible to contest AICF elections.
Justice Kannan will be hearing these objections on December 26.