By IANS
Ahmedabad : Even as Sardar Patel stadium in Motera is decked up to host the second Test between India and South Africa starting Tuesday, there seem to be disquieting developments for the Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA) president and Congress leader Narhari Amin.
A no-confidence motion was moved early this week by around 119 members of Cricket Board of Control, Ahmedabad (CBCA) led by rebel leader Ashok Saheba, president of Hindu Gymkhana Cricket Club, an affiliate of CBCA.
The no confidence motion was against CBCA president Deepak Navnitlal and 18 governing committee members. The CBCA has 11 votes out of the 26 that count in the selection of the GCA president.
The motion is likely to come up for voting soon, even as the rival faction claims support of 119 of the 230 members of CBCA. As per tradition, the president of CBCA goes on to become the president of GCA.
“The full state government machinery is involved in the machinations to oust me, especially Home Minister Amit Shah,” Amin told IANS here Saturday.
He accused Shah of trying to influence the members. “The members need not get swayed away by all this,” he said.
He further said that the GCA has grown by leaps and bounds ever since he had taken over in 1993. “When I took over, the GCA had lost Rs.100 million while today it has a surplus of Rs.150 million in the bank,” Amin said.
Today the Motera stadium ranks among the best in the world and a new ground has been built alongside it. “This is due to about Rs.300 million spent on the stadium by the present management,” Amin claimed. He also said a new cricket academy is getting final touches.
Vice-president of GCA Sudhir Nanavati, a close aide of Amin and an executive member of CBCA, told IANS that the threat to Amin and GCA was indeed real. “If we lose CBCA everything is lost. Control of CBCA is absolutely essential to survive in GCA.”
Apart from the 11 votes of CBCA, cricket organisations of Nadiad, Valsad and Surat have four votes each in GCA, while Gandhinagar has two votes; the vote of an individual, Pethavala of Surat, makes up the 26.
As per the CBCA constitution, the governing body has to convene an extraordinary general meeting within 30 days of a no-confidence motion being moved. “If Amin group is defeated in CBCA, then naturally Amin and all of us as GCA office-bearers will have to step down,” Nanavati said.
But GCA secretary Vikram Patel felt “it is much ado about nothing as far as the anti-Amin move is concerned.”
He claimed “most of the rebel signatures are fictitious” and brushed aside any threat to Amin.
Ashok Saheba, former Ranji player and originator of anti-Amin crusade, had set the ball rolling by charging the Ahmedabad unit with corruption and claiming that the present move is in the interest of cricket and cricketers.