IOA prez dismisses Batra's demand to call SGM

Indian Olympic Association chief N Ramachandran today dismissed Narinder Batra's claim of having requisite support to bring a no confidence motion against him, saying that the Hockey India boss does not even have enough backers to call a Special General Meeting to propose the move.
In a missive to Batra today, Ramachandran said he has got letters from only 20 member units (National Sports Federations and state Olympic associations) of the IOA, which have demanded a Special General Meeting to move the no confidence move, thus falling short of reaching the 50 per cent requirement.
He said the matter should be considered closed as Batra has failed to provide the required number of letters of support.

IOA has 39 NSFs and 35 state Olympic units, according to its website. In case of a few of them, disputes have been going on over who should control them. Batra had claimed support of 19 NSFs and 18 state Olympic associations.
"It is rather unfortunate that you have failed in furnishing to me the letters that you claim to have received from the member units, calling for a SGM to consider the no confidence motion but have chosen instead to level false and baseless allegations by your two emails on 24th June 2015," Ramachandran said in the letter.
"The total number of letters received by the IOA office and the undersigned till date from the member units do not exceed twenty (20) and several of these letters also suffer from infirmities. The Rules clearly mandates a written requisition to be sent to the president signed by the presidents and secretaries of not less than 50% member units," he said.

"In these circumstances, the SGM cannot be called, and consequently all the letters received are null and void. Please treat this chapter closed," said Ramachandran.
In a letter sent on June 22, Ramachandran had asked Batra to provide him all the letters of support which had demanded a no confidence vote against him within 24 hours so that he can take a decision on the issue.