BCCI revamp: Rajeev Shukla, for whom grass is always green

Talking about Shukla’s proximity to power, former BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel said he was “the person to get any job done”. “The bellwether in the BCCI”.

Patel added: “He (Shukla) knows which way the wind is blowing. I think only Shukla has managed to crack it till date. At the same time, he will get your job done. I remember we wanted some permission from the government, so we approached Shukla…When we are in any situation like this, ‘just dial Shukla’.”

Shukla entered the political arena as an MP in the early 2000s from the Akhil Bhartiya Loktantrik Congress Party, which later merged with the Congress. Around the same time, Shukla, a Kanpur resident, took the sports administration route through the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association (UPCA).

At the time, the state president of the organisation, Jyoti Bajpai, had been dominating the UPCA. He had held several posts in the BCCI too. He was getting on in years and allowed Shukla to represent the state at the Board’s annual general body meetings and elections.

That was a definitive point and Shukla did not look back. When NCP supremo Sharad Pawar became the BCCI president in 2005, the veteran politician made Shukla the unofficial spokesperson of the Board. With the proliferation of TV media at the time, the BCCI was finding it tough to get a man who could put its point across. Shukla was assigned the job.

Being a Congress MP helped with doing the legwork in government offices in Delhi, and Shukla slowly became the link between the cricket board and the government.

Calling Shukla’s media outreach “outstanding”, former BCCI administrator Ratnakar Shetty said, “He was extremely close to (late) Arun Jaitley. He has been around in the BCCI in different roles since 2000. He maintained good relations with the men who mattered. He was instrumental in my continuation as the Executive Secretary in-charge after the 2004 BCCI elections”.

Be it the famous Netwest Trophy win in 2002 – when former Indian captain and outgoing BCCI president Sourav Ganguly waved his jersey – or in the IPL boxes, Shukla has always managed to remain in close quarters with people and events that mattered most in the cricketing world.

For Shukla, who is considered to have access to power across parties, being a Congress leader never seemed to have been a stumbling block after a change in administration. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah, Priyanka Gandhi, or Manmohan Singh, Shukla can reportedly meet everyone. The BCCI office-bearers who were not particularly fond of him also “needed his expertise when it came to government-related matters”.

Shukla is also said to have a calm and composed demeanour. “I’m not a negative person. I always believe in positivity. If anyone does anything negative to me, I leave it to karma,” he had once said.

In 2010, as then IPL commissioner Lalit Modi was about to be suspended for “financial mismanagement”, the board felt Shukla was the right man to convey the orders. Shukla is said to have politely informed Modi about the decision at the IPL final that year at Mumbai’s DY Patil Stadium.

Talking to The Indian Express, a former BCCI office-bearer said: “He was the only person who could meet (lawyer and former BCCI president) (Shashank) Manohar and (N) Srinivasan (industrialiat and former BCCI president) when they were in a cold war. Shukla still drops by Manohar’s place each time he is in Nagpur”.

“Despite being a politician, he has a mild approach towards things. He is not a vindictive person. He will make everyone happy. He never believes in groups. For him, all remain equal,” Niranjan Shah, also a former BCCI secretary, said.

When the BCCI decided to have an election in 2015 to try and stop Srinivasan’s group from taking control, Shukla was not keen to contest. He only filed his candidature for the treasurer’s post after Pawar asked him to. Except for Thakur, who won by one vote to become BCCI secretary, everyone from the panel lost.

Largely free from controversies, Shukla was put on the spot in 2018 when a sting operation revealed that his personal executive was demanding money and sexual favours in return for a player’s selection in the Uttar Pradesh under-23 team. He was the IPL chairman then; his executive resigned.

Within the cricketing board of his home state Uttar Pradesh though, there seems to be a sense of disappointment with Shukla.

“The biggest problem we all felt with Shuklaji is that he has always been more bothered about his place on the side as opposed to doing something in his association. He is like that player who just wanted to be in the India squad. Till date, the UPCA doesn’t have its own stadium while most of the old state associations do. He should have contributed more, especially because he has a big stature and like all politicians, he too should have left a legacy,” a veteran administrator said.

Irrespective of this, and despite not holding any position at the UPCA now, Shukla calls the shots in the state board and more.