The election will be held without the proxy voting system, under which members were not required to be at the election booth to cast their ballot.
New Delhi: The forthcoming Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) election, the controversial organisation’s first in five years, promises to offer all the thrills of a T-20 match.
Within days of journalist Rajat Sharma, owner of India TV news channel, throwing his hat into the ring for the post of president, senior Supreme Court advocate Vikas Singh has announced his intent to contest the election.
Adding to the drama is the fact that the election will be held without the proxy voting system, under which members were not required to be at the election booth to cast their ballot. The practice has long been described by critics as the source of corruption in the DDCA, allowing members to manipulate elections by gathering proxies. According to experts, of the DDCA’s 4,000 members, only around 500-600 would turn up to vote.
The DDCA is currently being run by a committee headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice Vikramjit Sen, as directed by the Delhi High Court on 30 January last year.
“I was approached by the association of members, who wanted to bring back the lost glory of the DDCA,” Singh, who is also the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), told ThePrint. The association of members, he added, boasted of an impressive list of former cricketers.
‘In a pathetic situation’
“Currently, the DDCA is in a pathetic situation,” Singh said. “Delhi is the national capital and India the cricketing capital of the world, hence it is imperative to restore the DDCA to its former glory,” he added.
“The facilities are pitiful and youngsters are not getting a chance. I want to upgrade it to international standards,” Singh said.
The election, scheduled for 30 June, is the cricketing body’s first after union finance minister Arun Jaitley’s 14-year tenure as DDCA president. Over the years, the organisation has lurched from one controversy to another, especially over corruption allegations.
The election is finally taking place in keeping with directions issued by Sen. The ban on proxy voting is part of the 11-point model code of conduct released by him to dictate the election of the DDCA’s executive committee members, and in line with the recommendations of the Lodha committee for BCCI overhaul that were accepted by the Supreme Court.
The DDCA Members Front has lent its support to Singh. “The members front stands firmly together against the corruption that has been eating up the association since the past few years,” it said