BCCI CoA to ask Supreme Court to rethink Lodha's one state one vote plan

05/09/2017

The Committee of Administrators (CoA) may press the Supreme Court to rethink the ‘one state-one vote’ plan that has been proposed by justice RM Lodha. The Panel led by Vinod Rai has come to this conclusion after a series of meetings with all state units at Sunday’s special GM held in Delhi.

The CoA will also ask for a rethink of two other proposals which include: removal of voting rights from three government-run bodies Railways, Services and Universities and the suggestion to have the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) as a BCCI member.

At Sunday’s meeting, the CoA asked each association to point out the practical difficulties in carrying out the Supreme Court’s order, and the Indian Express reported that most state units had difficulties with the above three recommendations by the Lodha Panel, terming them as “unimplementable”.

As per the Lodha recommendations, Gujarat and Maharashtra will have one vote each whereas associations like Mumbai, Baroda, Saurashtra and Vidarbha will get voting rights on a three-year rotational basis. This gave rise to a consensus that 41-time Ranji Trophy winners, Mumbai, can’t be denied their voting rights while cricketing minnows from North East are allowed this privilege.

A member of a state association who attended the meeting was quoted as saying, “The CoA felt that one state-one vote is a bit harsh and that’s the reason they will ask the Supreme Court to revisit the issue.”

The CoA is also set to request the Apex court to allow voting rights to to Railways, Services and Universities as they run cricketing activities. The administrators appointed by the Supreme Court also believed that having the CAG as a member of the BCCI apex body would be a case of conflict of interest. An official said, “If a CAG member is part of BCCI, who will probe if there is a cricketing scam? We can’t have another CAG member probing it.”

Finally, although there were members who wanted a 70 year age cap and the “cooling off” period, the CoA didn’t approve the request.