Industrialist Rajinder Gupta elected Punjab Cricket Association chief

PCA unanimously elected Punjab industrialist Rajinder Gupta as its president and former Punjab Ranji player RP Singla as secretary of the association after its 69th annual general body meeting on Sunday.

PCA president Rajinder Gupta addresses the media in Mohali on Sunday. Express

Nine months after an ad-hoc committee took the control of Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) following the Supreme Court’s order, PCA unanimously elected Punjab industrialist Rajinder Gupta as its president and former Punjab Ranji player RP Singla as secretary of the association after its 69th annual general body meeting on Sunday. For the past nine months, the four-member committee, with R P Singla as its convenor, was running the affairs of PCA. The new executive committee will be sent for approval to the Committee of Administrators.

Under pressure for the past nine months, the body had made its members list public earlier this month and the 182 life members eligible for voting included former PCA president I S Bindra and his son Amarinder Bindra, who was also elected as one of the three vice-presidents of the committee along with former Punjab player and ex-Jalandhar mayor Rakesh Rathore and S M Verma.

Ten district cricket association out of 16 representative members district association were made members of the committee. “We had amended the articles of PCA earlier according to the Supreme Court order and we have immediately implemented the recommendations. After Vidharbha Cricket Association implementation of the order, we have adopted the new constitution and no officials will hold any post for more than nine years. There will be no consecutive terms for executive committee and this committee will leave after three years. We have also accepted an ombudsmen in the form of retired session judge B K Mehta,” said GS Walia, PCA former secretary.

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Gupta, who has been associated with PCA as life member, had earlier worked along with I S Bindra prior to the 1996 World Cup. “I remember the time when I spent my time along with IS Bindra sir prior to the 1996 World Cup. Such officials have set a benchmark and the new committee will collectively take the responsibility. Our immediate focus will be getting more players at the district level and to create more facilities at the district level. We saw how Harmanpreet Kaur made Indian proud in the women’s World Cup and we will ensure that women cricketers get the same preference as men and more camps are organised for women. Promoting infrastructure and full utilisation of resources will be the key area for us,” said Gupta, the owner of 600-crore Trident Group.

Former Punjab cricketers and coach Arun Sharma and Dr AGS Bawa were elected as joint secretary and Ajay Tyagi as treasurer.

“The executive committee will soon form the selection committee and cricket committee soon. The list of all the members is on the website and International cricketers, who are not members of any other state association can approach their district association for membership. We have also finalised Ajay Ratra as Punjab senior team coach after consultation with players,” said 64-year-old former Punjab player R P Singla, who was elected as PCA secretary.

Earlier this month, the former players body — Punjab Cricket Players’ Association — had alleged that international cricketers like Bishen Singh Bedi and Navjot Sidhu apart from others are not members of PCA.

Nitin Sharma

Nitin Sharma is an Assistant Editor with the sports team of The Indian Express. Based out of Chandigarh, Nitin works with the print sports desk while also breaking news stories for the online sports team. A Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award recipient for the year 2017 for his story ‘Harmans of Moga’, Nitin has also been a two-time recipient of the UNFPA-supported Laadli Media Awards for Gender Sensitivity for the years 2022 and 2023 respectively. Nitin mainly covers Olympics sports disciplines with his main interests in shooting, boxing, wrestling, athletics and much more. The last 17 years with The Indian Express has seen him unearthing stories across India from as far as Andaman and Nicobar to the North East. Nitin also covers cricket apart from women’s cricket with a keen interest. Nitin has covered events like the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the 2011 ODI World Cup, 2016 T20 World Cup and the 2017 AIBA World Youth Boxing Championships. An alumnus of School of Communication Studies, Panjab University, from where he completed his Masters in Mass Communications degree, Nitin has been an avid quizzer too. A Guru Nanak Dev University Colour holder, Nitin’s interest in quizzing began in the town of Talwara Township, a small town near the Punjab-Himachal Pradesh border. When not reporting, Nitin's interests lie in discovering new treks in the mountains or spending time near the river Beas at his hometown. ... Read More

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