Dalmiya becomes president, Thakur secretary

Jagmohan Dalmiya has been unanimously elected the president of the BCCI, more than a decade after he last held the position, at the board's AGM in Chennai.

The elections to the other positions, however, were tight contests. Anurag Thakur, a nominee from the Pawar group, defeated Sanjay Patel by one vote to be elected secretary. Thakur won 15-14, with one of the 30 votes being invalid. Amitabh Chaudhary, favoured by the Srinivasan camp, was elected joint secretary after he edged out Srinivasan's former ally Chetan Desai in a tie, with interim president Shivlal Yadav, who chaired the meeting, exercising his casting vote. Both the candidates were tied 15 apiece, thus forcing Yadav to vote for the second time as per the rulebook.

The treasurer's post was secured by Anirudh Chaudhary after he defeated Rajiv Shukla 16-13 [one vote invalid]. But, in perhaps the biggest upset, Jyotiraditya Scindia from the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association, who was backed by Pawar, lost out in the race for the vice-president (central zone) to CK Khanna of the DDCA. Khanna won 15-14, with an invalid vote.

Soon after the AGM Chaudhary said Srinivasan would remain the BCCI's nominee to the ICC, and Thakur would represent it at the chief executives' committee. The current selection committee, led by Sandeep Patil, will also remain until the next AGM in September.

TC Mathew, representing the Kerala Cricket Association, outvoted Pawar's candidate Ravi Savant 16-14 to become the vice-president from West. ML Nehru, G Gangaraju, and Gautam Roy, all members of the Srinivasan group, were elected unopposed as vice-presidents from the North, South, and East zones respectively.

"All of us are keen to work together in the interest of the BCCI and to restore the faith of people in the game of cricket," Thakur said after his election.

Dalmiya, a former BCCI and ICC president, emerged as a consensus candidate between the two rival factions of the board, led by the sidelined incumbent N Srinivasan, and the former BCCI and ICC president Sharad Pawar.

Dalmiya, who is president of the Cricket Association of Bengal, filed his nomination papers with support from his own association, the National Cricket Club in Kolkata and the four other east zone associations. Since it is the east zone's turn to nominate the president for the three-year term, Dalmiya wanted to ensure that a candidate from the zone held the post.

As per the constitutional amendment in September 2012, the newly-elected officials will be in charge till September 2017. The amendment had increased the tenure of all office-bearers to three years, starting with the 2014 AGM, which was eventually held on Monday.