Defiant Srinivasan refuses to resign: ‘will not be bulldozed’

Initially,it was believed that the BCCI president had travelled to Mumbai from Kodaikanal to try and meet his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan,who is also the head of the Chennai Super Kings team owned by Srinivasan’s India Cements and was remanded in police custody until May 29 for questioning in connection with the betting-fixing racket.

However,Srinivasan did not meet Meiyappan and left for Kolkata where Cricket Association of Bengal president Jagmohan Dalmiya is hosting a dinner for BCCI officials on the eve of the IPL-6 final — to be played between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians.

Srinivasan said he wasn’t aware of Meiyappan’s alleged involvement in betting. “I had no knowledge. Everybody knows I hardly watch a (IPL) game. In fact,I do not go to the CSK games,I hardly watch the T20. All I can say is that I had no knowledge of anything,which also people will understand because I never went to the games,” he said.

A top BCCI official said the final would be played as scheduled,but within the board,there seems to be more interest in the future of Srinivasan as an administrator than the final.

With the who’s who of the BCCI in Kolkata for the dinner on Saturday and to watch the final on Sunday night,Srinivasan will have to try and tide over a crisis of an unprecedented nature that has put his position as BCCI president under threat.

Although a clearer picture about Srinivasan’s future is expected only after Sunday’s IPL final,one option being considered was to slap a life ban from the IPL on Meiyappan,a source said.

Under the BCCI constitution,a president can be suspended only if he/she is prosecuted in a criminal proceeding in a court of law. However,many in the BCCI feel that Srinivasan’s position as president is untenable in the present circumstances because he has a stake in the Chennai Super Kings and also heads the BCCI’s three-member disciplinary committee.

The names of BCCI vice-presidents Arun Jaitley,Rajiv Shukla,Niranjan Shah and former BCCI president Shashank Manohar are doing the rounds to take over as interim president until the board’s annual general body meeting due in September.

Manohar has a clean image and it was the 55-year-old administrator from Nagpur who scrapped controversial clauses in the tender process for the two new IPL teams in 2010.

However,with Srinivasan insisting that he will remain BCCI president,any move to remove him can only be initiated if nine associations write to secretary Sanjay Jagdale,calling for a special general body meeting with the agenda to oust the president.