Niranjan Shah becomes the eighth person to be added to the BCCI’s new committee to look into the Lodha recommendations © PTI
Niranjan Shah, the former Saurashtra Cricket Association secretary, has been added to the BCCI’s new committee to identify the difficulties in implementing the Lodha committee recommendations even though he is 73 years old, and as such over the age cap (70) suggested for BCCI office bearers. A BCCI official, however, clarified that Shah had been added only as “an invitee” – which meant – “he will deliberate in the committee, but won’t have a vote in case it comes to it”.
Shah joins a panel led by Rajiv Shukla, which also includes BCCI’s acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary, vice-president TC Mathew, treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry, Nabha Bhattacharjee, the secretary of the Meghalaya Cricket Association, Jay Shah, the joint-secretary of the Gujarat Cricket Association and Sourav Ganguly, president of Cricket Association of Bengal, who is also the only cricketer out of the eight.
Shah’s presence is understood to be a shot in the arm for the old guard of the BCCI which has resisted the reforms. According to sources, he, along with fellow disqualified office-bearer N Srinivasan, who isn’t a part of the committee , will look to check the influence of Shukla and Choudhary, who are seen by some members to be in favour of adopting the Lodha reforms.
“Now that Niranjan and N Srinivasan are on the same page, the opposition to the Lodha report at the SGM gained momentum,” a senior state association official from the south zone had told ESPNcricinfo on Tuesday. Another official from the west zone said that Srinivasan had suggested the inclusion of a few more members to the committee at the SGM. “Apart from Shah, he wanted the likes of Ranjib Biswal to be added to it”.
The committee is set to have its first meeting on July 1 – when the Committee of Administrators, which has been overseeing the affairs of the BCCI since January, is holding a meeting as well – and will submit its report on July 10. With Shah joining in as an invitee, it is expected that there will be considerable debate over at least two of the stipulations the BCCI is unwilling to adopt – the age cap of 70 years for office bearers and the tenure cap of nine years with cooling-off periods in between. Shah is understood to be opposed to both
The next hearing of the case involving the Lodha committee’s recommendations in the Supreme Court is on July 14.
Arun Venugopal is a correspondent at ESPNcricinfo. @scarletrun
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo