Lalit Modi ousted as RCA president, Vasundhara Raje loyalist voted in

An urgent meeting was called where district representatives rushed in to pass a resolution voting out Modi.

Former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi was removed as the Rajasthan Cricket Association president Saturday evening following a no-confidence motion against him and replaced by BJP minorities cell leader and Vasundhara Raje loyalist Amin Pathan as acting president by 23 out of 33 votes. An urgent meeting of the RCA was called at a city hotel where district representatives rushed in to pass a resolution voting out Modi.

The motion was also brought against the 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.”

Ever since Lalit Modi was elected as RCA president in May this year, the BCCI had banned the body. Though the elections were held in December last year 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 his absence, Modi’s confidante Mahmood Abdi ran the show for him in the state over the past four months.

Story continues below this ad

The BCCI had thereafter banned the body and no international or IPL matches were held in the Sawai Man Singh stadium in the state capital. The annual grants of upto Rs. 29 crore to the body were also held back.

On Sunday, 23 district associations voted Modi and his coterie out and elected Pathan as the acting president. 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.

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 illegible.”

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

Story continues below this ad

The bustle was also being read in political terms as the end of 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 full confidence, was a well-thought out selection by the ruling government as it no longer wanted to suffer from severe financial losses due to Modi’s stand-off with the BCCI.

Stay updated with the latest sports news across Cricket, Football, Chess, and more. Catch all the action with real-time live cricket score updates and in-depth coverage of ongoing matches.