With a couple of days remaining to the first-ever election in the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN), the cricketing community gets busy and divided.
National Sports Council (NSC) had dissolved the CAN led by Binay Raj Pandey on October 26 and installed UCPN (Maoist) central committee member Tanka Aangbuhang as new chief with a mandate to formulate its statute and hold election within the 60 days.
CAN will hold its election on December 18 in Chitwan.
Though cricket officials are busy in their electoral homework, nobody has formally announced their candidacy. Aangbuhang and former general secretary Tanka Paneru are said to be preparing to stake claim for the presidency.
“We have executive committee meeting on Thursday. We have begun the exercise to elect executive committee unanimously,” said Aangbuhang.
“I’m discussing my candidacy with the experienced people in the cricketing community and they all have responded positively,” he added.
Aangbuhang expressed his confidence about getting elected from the general assembly. “I’ll try to forge consensus to include all the experienced people and even if anybody will contest against me, I’ll be happy to defeat him,” said Aangbuhang.
Meanwhile, Upendra Bhattarai, who is a close ally of ex-president Pandey, said that he has neither received the copy of the new statute of CAN, nor decided about his candidacy for any post.
“’´ll see how things proceed. If the cricketing community is willing to forge a consensus for the development of the game, I´m ok with or without any position,” said Bhattarai.
NSC had approved the statute of CAN on November 30, 2011 and ordered the CAN to pass the statute through its general assembly.
As per the new statute, the 31 members of the current executive committee, one representative each from 37 member district, two representatives each from eight cricketing regions, a representative each of coaches and umpires as well as the five person nominated by the president will vote in the election.
On the other hand, former general secretary Paneru, who has criticized NSC’s decision to form the new committee, is still mulling over two options: filing candidacy for presidency or fighting a legal battle.
“The more I see the more I realize that there is faint chance for free and fair election,” said Paneru, who is a CPN-UML cadre. “Among the 91 voters, 52 are directly or indirectly nominated by government. In this condition, how could it be free and fair?”
Paneru has sent his complaints regarding the election to International Cricket Council (ICC) and Asian Cricket Council (ACC). “No need to say that this is purely a political move, which may invite further political intervention every time the government changes here,” Paneru wrote in his letter to the ICC.
“I´ve asked ICC and ACC to closely monitor all the election procedures as I doubt the chance of the election being free and fair,” said Paneru. He accused Aangbuhang of planning to use Maoist influence to turn the result in his favor by holding the election in Chitwan.
“They are just trying to avoid cricketing community and media during the election,” claimed Paneru.
Akhtar withdraws court case
Former national cricketers Aamir Akhtar, Manoj Baishya and cricket enthusiast Surya Thapaliya and Shailendra Khadka announced to withdraw the court case against CAN.
“We appreciate the move by CAN to provide monthly allowance to the national cricketers and its declaration to host the executive committee election on December 18,” said Akhtar in a press conference.