Rohan Jaitley returns as DDCA President, his panel sweeps polls

Even before the wintry dusk could ease into night and the counting of votes could get to halfway mark on Monday, the victory of Team Rohan Jaitley in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) elections was as clear as crystal. There was, however, just one concern. The fate of Secretary’s post was still hanging in balance and seemed as hazy as the pollution-hit night sky in the Capital.

Ashok Sharma, fondly known as Mama, of Jaitley’s group was up in a three-way contest against Kirti Azad group’s Sanjay Bhardwaj as well as Vinod Tihara who was looking to make a comeback to the DDCA administration.

They went neck and neck. By 500 votes, Tihara led by 15 votes and by 600 votes, the gap of his lead had reduced to 12.

When 700 votes had been counted, Ashok Sharma had moved into lead with seven votes and by the 800th vote he had extended his lead to 15. The gap reduced to six by 900 votes and then further to just two votes in favour of Sharma by the 1000th vote.

It was worrying for the Jaitley group since the Secretary’s post is vital in any organisation and a man outside of his faction occupying it could at some time in future be a spanner in the works.

Sharma, however, kept building his lead and by the time the 1500th vote was counted, he was leading by 31 votes. It was around then that Tihara, sitting in the corner room on the platform of the Willingdon Pavilion, once occupied in its primitive form by the late record-keeper Satpal, began to fidget. As he walked into the restaurant he called out his close aide to pray for 30-40 votes to fall his way.

Ashok Sharma takes a bite of laddoo after close victory

Tihara was naturally disappointed. He had banked on other contestants of his faction to get votes en bloc from their supporters. They failed to get votes even for themselves.

Sharma had votes en bloc of all his co-panelists’ supporters.

Tihara’s alleged tactic of cutting into Kirti Azad faction’s Bhardwaj by creating confusion through fielding his namesake, the LB Shastri Club coach Sanjay Bhardwaj for Secretary’s post as independent seemingly materalised. Coach Bhardwaj got 151 votes as against the Kirti Azad faction Bhardwaj’s 512.

However, while he killed the Bhardwaj threat, he couldn’t subdue Sharma who romped home with 893 votes against Tihara’s 744. Both Tihara and Bhardwaj were earlier part of the same group but later fell out. It is likely that they had cut into each other’s votes benefitting Sharma.

Among other battles, Rohan Jaitley won by a margin of 800 votes to return as President of DDCA. He polled 1,577 votes against Kirti Azad’s 777.

Shikha Kumar, the daughter of CK Khanna, polled 1,246 to become the Vice-President. She was head and shoulders above Rakesh Kumar Bansal of Paweriya-Tihara-Bansal group, who got 536 votes, and Sudhir Kumar Agarwal of Kirti Azad-Sanjay Bhardwaj group, who bagged 498 votes.

The Treasurer’s post was won by Jaitley group’s Harish Singla, who got 1,328 votes against Gurpreet Sareen’s 594 (Azad-Bhardwaj group) and Rajan Goel’s 340 (Paweriya-Tihara-Bansal).

Amit Grover of Jaitley group was elected as the new Joint Secretary with 1,189 votes. He beat Karnail Singh (Paweriya-Tihara-Bansal) who got 619 votes and Kamal Chopra (Azad-Bhardwaj) who got 461 votes.

All the seven Directors’ seats went to Rohan Jaitley group which was backed by CK Khanna and Manchanda brothers. Anand Verma (985), Manjit Singh (1,050), Navdeep Malhotra (1,034), Shyam Sunder Sharma (1,165), Tushar Saigal (926), Vikas Katyal (1,054) and Vikram Kohli ‘Pompey’ (939) were elected as Directors.

"The voters have seen what we have done for the last three years. They have given us another opportunity to serve them," said Jaitley after the win.

He hit out at Azad blaming him for selective criticism. "Doing selective criticism with the intent of only contesting elections doesn't fly."

It was no suprise that in the late hours of Monday and wee hours of Tuesday, the sounds of drums and crackers filled the air at the Arun Jaitley Stadium.    

The DDCA is one of the founding associations of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). 

Tags : DDCA elections, BCCI, Rohan Jaitley, Kirti Azad, Vinod Tihara, Sanjay Bhardwaj, CK Khanna, Arun Jaitley Stadium