BCCI president-in-exile N Srinivasan is set to discuss his future course of action with BJP heavyweight and union finance minister Arun Jaitley once the embattled cricket administrator is back from the two-day ICC Board Meeting in Dubai, scheduled to conclude on Thursday. A Supreme Court verdict has effectively barred Srinivasan from contesting the BCCI polls, slated within six weeks, but board insiders feel that there is every chance of the Tamil Nadu strongman fighting the elections if he is able to sell his prized IPl franchise Chennai Super Kings within the stipulated time frame.
“Srinivasan will be back from Dubai after the board meets ends on January 29. So ideally, there is a chance of meeting Jaitley in Delhi on either January 30 or 31 or may be a tele-conference depending on the finance minister's schedule,” a senior BCCI official, in the know of things, he said. “Since Srinivasan has always paid heed to Jaitley's advice, it won't be any different this time round.
A clearer picture on BCCI logjam will only emerge after the Srinivasan-Jaitley discussion. At the end of the day, Jaitley controls eight votes (BJP ruled states and institutions) and that's a good enough number in a total of 31 to have a decisive say in this regard,” the source said. However there is a school of thought in BCCI that Srinivasan will contest in this election as he is well on his way to dissociating his parent firm India Cements from the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led franchise.
BCCI needs to be accountable as per SC observation: Sonowal
New Delhi: Expressing the government's desire to bring BCCI under the ambit of the RTI Act, Sports Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Wednesday reiterated the centre's stance following the Supreme Court ruling that the private cricketing body performs a public function and is amenable to judicial law and review. “This is a public body as observed by the honourable Supreme Court so definitely it is accountable to make their day to day activity more transparent to the people,” Sonowal said on the sidelines of an event organised for the youth of BRICS nations.
The court, while reading out the judgement in the IPl spot-fixing case, had said that the “BCCI does discharge several important public functions which make it amenable to the writ jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India”. Asked about the idea of organising a BRICS sports games on the lines of South Asian Games, Sonowal said: “Everything is possible. We (BRICS countries) have to put a thought to how we can move together. This area can be definitely be explored”.