It’s a farce

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A deeply disappointed I.S. Bindra, former chief of the BCCI and current president of the Punjab Cricket Association, said that N. Srinivasan’s act in stepping aside from his presidential duties for a month was a well-orchestrated farce.
“Srinivasan said he will rubberstamp all the decisions that Jagmohan Dalmiya takes in this interim period. They are playing a farce on people and everyone knows he will be back after a month when the dust settles down. This is not going to satisfy the public. He is taking billions of cricket supporters for a ride. It needed something more than this ‘stepping aside’ drama,” said Bindra.
Bindra also said that there was no provision in the BCCI constitution for “stepping aside”. “This is unconstitutional. An SGM should have been called for to make interim arrangements before the next AGM in September.
“Even Sunday’s emergent working committee meeting is illegal for the fact that they didn’t give 72-hour notice to the members. Ravi Sawant too said the meeting is illegal. But, Jaitley is keen on getting the meeting ratified subsequently,” Bindra added.
Bindra said he was the only person who asked for Srinivasan’s resignation. “I categorically asked Srinivasan to step down till September, but he refused. Members were all whispering, but no one had the guts to speak up because of the stature of Jaitley, the leader of the opposition. I was the only one to record dissent and nobody supported me. It even seemed they had no clue about what was happening,” Bindra said.
Bindra added that he also raised an objection to the three-member committee which was constituted by IPL’s operational committee which has people such as the league’s chief of operations Sundar Raman and IMG’s Peter Griffth.
“The operational committee was formed to punish cricketers for their on-field offences. How can they be given power to form a probe for corruption involving a team principal?” he asked.
Bindra said it was BJP leader Arun Jaitley who was calling the shots in the meeting. “I would say that Jaitley had his way, rather than Srinivasan. First, Jaitley’s name was proposed and I told him it would be a big embarrassment as a leader of the opposition. So Jaitley didn’t accept it.
“Then Jaitley came up with Shashank Manohar’s name and Dalmiya’s, but Srinivasan shot down suggesting that he would not allow an outsider. Anurag Thakur and Rajeev Shukla also supported Dalmiya,” Bindra disclosed, saying that he has no complaints about Dalmiya coming in. “I am just not happy with the way he got into. It’s an illegal maneuvering. I told Dalmiya not to accept,” he added.
Bindra confirmed that Sanjay Jagdale and Ajay Shirke who quit their secretary and treasurer’s posts respectively have been given further time to reconsider their decision. “But no one spoke about Rajeev Shukla’s resignation,” he pointed out.