BCCI elections on October 22, announces CoA

The Committee of Administrators on Tuesday said that the much-awaited elections of the BCCI will be held on October 22.

The CoA, which was appointed by the Supreme Court in January 2017 to oversee the sweeping reforms recommended by the Lodha panel, announced the elections date here after due consultation with the apex court-appointed amicus curiae P S Narsimha.

The Supreme Court had assigned Narsimha in March to mediate with various state associations which had filed 80 interim appeals.

In the meeting attended by all three CoA members -- chief Vinod Rai, Diana Edulji and Ravi Thodge -- the deadline to hold state elections was set at September 14. Rai said 30 out of 38 state associations have been rendered compliant and the rest are in the process of amending their constitution as per the Lodha reforms.

Asked about elections finally taking place in the BCCI, which has suffered from administrative crisis for more than two years, Rai said he was a happy man.

"When I was appointed by the Honourable Supreme Court, I had said that my role will be of a night watchman and this night watchman has stayed for very long," Rai told PTI in a lighter vein.

"We (CoA) are happy because our job was very specific. It was mandated to make them (the state associations) accept the constitution (as per Lodha recommendations). They (associations) had difficulties which was mediated between us, amicus and the court. We are happy to hand it over them.

"We sincerely believed a democratically run elected body should run cricket in the country," added the former CAG.

Rai lauded amicus Narsimha's role in dealing with the state associations.

"We gave a lot of status reports (10 in all) to Supreme Court. Supreme Court heard all the associations, then amicus was appointed by the Supreme Court to hold mediations.

"Amicus spent about 150 hours talking to all the state associations on clarifications which were sought. Ultimately, the state associations have come forward and accepted all the recommendations, about 30 odd have been rendered compliant."
Elections schedule: