The BCCI looks headed towards a messy and protracted power struggle over the continuance of its president N Srinivasan following the arrest of Gurunath Meiyappan , his son-in-law and the head of the Chennai Super Kings franchise. Srinivasan - managing director of India Cements, the franchise owner - has said he has no plans of stepping down but there appears to be a growing momentum towards a change at the top of the Indian board.
Srinivasan was in a defiant mood when he landed in Mumbai on Saturday afternoon at the time Gurunath was being produced in court. He reiterated that he had no intention to resign. "I cannot be bulldozed or railroaded into resigning by the pressure being applied," he said. "The BCCI will follow strictly all its rules. The law will take its course."
"Somebody wants to replace me, let him get elected," he said.
Most top board officials are expected to assemble in Kolkata through Saturday, though there is no formal board meeting planned for the day. It is expected that Srinivasan's future will be discussed in detail by the members, virtually all of whom will attend the final on Sunday and are expected to attend a dinner hosted by former BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya.
When N Srinivasan can go from there
Scenario 1: If Srinivasan steps down voluntarily
The BCCI has to find an interim president till the annual general meeting (AGM) is convened in the last week of September. When a president steps down before his term is over, it is usually the vice-president from the same zone as the president who takes over as the interim president. In that case, it would be Shivlal Yadav. If the vice-president refuses, then it has to be one of the eligible representatives from the same zone who takes over.
Scenario 2: If board members want Srinivasan ousted immediately
One-third of the voting members - 10 - must write in to the BCCI secretary urging him to pass a motion against the president for tarnishing the board's reputation. The secretary then has to convene a special general body meeting (SGM) at the earliest. At the SGM, if two-third of the members - 21, to be precise - vote against the president, he has to step down.
Scenario 3: If the board acts at the AGM
Srinivasan will remain as president till the AGM in September, when he will have completed two years of his term. According to the amended BCCI constitution, an office bearer's term is extendable by another year at the end of two years. If Srinivasan wants to remain in power for another year, he will have to contest an election. The winner of the election - held by secret ballot - is decided based on simple majority.
Scenario 4: Compromise
If the BCCI members agree that Srinivasan is the best person to be the BCCI's face, he will remain in charge till September 2014.
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The Board members know that if Srinivasan does not resign from the job, their options are both limited and complicated. According to the BCCI constitution, a special general body meeting can move a resolution against its president with a three-fourth majority only if the president is directly involved in a corruption case - which is not the case so far.
Srinivasan's two-year term ends in September but is extendable by another year if he is re-elected. There remains a likelihood that Srinivasan could continue until the Board AGM at the end of September. If his opponents put up a candidate against him, a simple majority will be needed by either side to win.
Should the BCCI call an emergency general body meeting, it may come down to electoral numbers. Before a meeting to take a decision against a member is convened, two-thirds of the BCCI members will have to write to the Secretary, asking for Srinivasan's removal. Besides the 27 affiliated units who compete in the Ranji Trophy, the Cricket Club of India, the National Cricket Club, Kolkata and All India Universities have a vote each. If the incumbent president is presiding over the AGM, he is also entitled to a separate vote, thus extending the tally to 31. The last time BCCI saw a contested election for the post of president was in 2005, when Sharad Pawar defeated Ranbir Singh Mahendra to break Jagmohan Dalmiya's monopoly over Indian cricket's administration.
There remains much internal grumbling about where this controversy around the Chennai Super Kings' official and Srinivasan has left the BCCI. A former board official said that Gurunath's arrest has "tremendously harmed the credibility of Indian cricket. And the process to restore credibility cannot even begin till he remains at the helm."
The twist in the entire saga is the Gurunath angle. Srinivasan has already constituted a one-man commission of inquiry, headed by Ravi Sawani, to investigate the spot-fixing allegations.
If Sawani's report implicates anyone - a player or a member of support staff or management team - from Chennai Super Kings, the report will be forwarded to the disciplinary committee. With Srinivasan, in his capacity as the president, being a member of the three-member committee, there would be clear conflict of interest.
In such a case, his only option would be to recuse himself from the disciplinary committee by stepping down as the president.
The signs of a shift in the ground beneath Srinivasan's feet were evident on Friday, well before Gurunath's arrest, with several significant statements being made across the spectrum of politics and business that controls Indian cricket. Sahara chairman Subroto Roy, who had earlier this week announced his team's pullout from the IPL and his company's decision to not renew its sponsorship of Indian cricket, indicated he would be willing to reconsider the decision if there was a change of guard. He went so far as to say Sharad Pawar, a former BCCI president, was an "apt" person to head the board once again.
Around the same time a senior member of Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party issued an unambiguous statement saying Srinivasan should go, though the party issued a clarification saying it was issued in a personal capacity and didn't reflect the party's views. On Saturday, Pawar told ESPNcricinfo that the party had no view on the matter. "I have resigned [from the BCCI] five year ago to go to the ICC and don't want to come back."
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