Lalit Modi voted out as RCA president, but his loyalists insist Saturday’s polls have no standing

Lalit Modi was elected as RCA president in May this year and subsequently the BCCI had banned the association.

Former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi was removed as the Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA) president on Saturday evening following a no-confidence motion against him and replaced by BJP minority cell leader and Vasundhara Raje loyalist Amin Pathan. Pathan took over as acting president of the RCA. Pathan received 23 out of 33 votes. An urgent meeting of the RCA was called at a city hotel, where district representatives passed a resolution voting out Modi.

The motion was also brought against deputy president Mahmood Abdi, secretary Somendra Tiwari and treasurer Pawan Goyal of RCA. “The move had to be taken as RCA was being distanced by BCCI and it had an adverse impact on cricketing activities in the state. The subsidies had stopped, our players were not being included in the team. We were completely boycotted by BCCI. This is unacceptable,” said Pathan, who is also the president of the Kota district association. “We will now approach the BCCI tomorrow and discuss the future course of action.”

Lalit Modi was elected as RCA president in May this year and subsequently the BCCI had banned the association. Though the elections were held in December, the results could not be disclosed due to a legal tussle between BCCI and RCA and it was following the Supreme Court’s intervention that the results were announced in May. Modi had then secured 24 votes out of the total 33 district associations that comprise RCA. However, in Modi’s absence his confidante Mahmood Abdi ran the show for him in the state over the past four months.

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Officials present at the meeting told The Indian Express that three other district association representatives were on their way to cast their vote in favour of Pathan and the number would eventually go up to 26, a clear majority.

Counter charges

However, refusing to accept the decision, Modi’s legal counsel Swadeep Hora said, “The RCA Act has a provision for no-confidence motion for which a meeting of the executive has to be called 21 days in advance. There was no such notice and even today the total number of members who arrived for the meeting is not what is being quoted. The signatures of the 23 supposed votes in favour of Pathan are not valid.”

Hora maintained that Modi in his capacity of RCA president had instead initiated disciplinary action against Pathan and suspended him and a few others, who claimed to have taken over as the new governing body.

RCA deputy president Mehmood Abdi said, “This is the handiwork of a handful of disgruntled elements… and other anti-RCA elements. These very people have been turncoats in RCA politics. The entire RCA is behind the duly elected body constituted under the supervision of Supreme Court-appointed observers, which elected Mr. Lalit Modi as the president.”
The rise of Pathan is being seen as bringing to an end the camaraderie between chief minister Vasundhara Raje and Lalit Modi. Highly placed sources in the BJP state unit said that Pathan, who is considered to have chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s confidence, was a well-thought out selection in order to prevent the RCA from suffering from financial losses due to Modi’s stand-off with the BCCI.

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