BCCI elections | Sourav Ganguly and Mohammad Azharuddin among electoral draft roll
Former India captains Mohammad Azharuddin and Sourav Ganguly are among the biggest names put forward to contest the BCCI elections scheduled for October 23. Former India batsman Brijesh Patel, home minister Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah, former IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla are some others on the roll.
Arun Dhumal (president Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association and brother of former BCCI president Anurag Thakur), Rajat Sharma (Delhi Districts Cricket Association president), and Jaydev Shah (Saurashtra Cricket Association president and son former BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah) are the other notable names in the 38-member draft roll BCCI released to the public on Friday.Â
The final list will be released on October 10 for the state associations to send in names to contest various positions, after the draft is vetted by the electoral officer N Gopalswami. On October 16, a week before the elections, the BCCI would release the final list of candidates looked at to fill five office bearer posts (president, vice-president, secretary, joint secretary and treasurer), one seat on the Apex Council and two positions on the IPL Governing Council.
Under the new BCCI constitution, drafted in accordance with the RM Lodha Committee reforms, eligibility is bound to become a key factor in the coming weeks. For Ganguly, who was re-elected president of the Cricket Association of Bengal, it remains to be seen whether he will accept a cooling-off period of three years, which is only 10 months away. Azharuddin, meanwhile, would be attending the board's AGM for the first time, surrounded by Shukla and Patel, who did not take part in elections at their respective state associations — Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka — but have already served several years as office bearers at their state associations.