After a gap of over 10 years, veteran cricket administrator Jagmohan Dalmiya was on Monday made an uncontested comeback as full-time president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) during its annual general meeting (AGM) here.
The former International Cricket Council (ICC) president, whose previous tenure as BCCI chief ended in 2004, was a 'neutral' candidate from both the factions in the board. While one camp is led by the sidelined board president N. Srinivasan, the other camp is led by Maharashtra strongman and former ICC boss Sharad Pawar.
Apart from the 74-year-old Dalmiya, the other new entrant is Haryana's Anirudh Choudhary who has been appointed the new treasurer while Himachal Pradesh's Anurag Thakur was named the board secretary.
Anurag, a nominee from the Pawar faction, won the secretary post by one vote. His opponent was Baroda's Sanjay Patel, favoured by Srinivasan.
Anirudh, belonging to Srinivasan camp, defeated Uttar Pradesh's Rajeev Shukla, a former BCCI vice-president, for the post of treasurer.
As per BCCI rules, it was the turn of the east zone associations this year to nominate candidates for the elections.
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Dalmiya's elevation to the position was necessitated by Srinivasan after the latter was forced to stay away from the election owing to a Supreme Court directive. Srinivasan was barred by the Supreme Court from contesting the election following the Indian Premier League (IPL) spot fixing scam. He is a nominee of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA).
The court is currently hearing the IPL spot-fixing scandal in which conflict of interest with regards to Srinivasan's position as the BCCI president and owner of the IPL team Chennai Super Kings has come in for sharp criticism from the court.
Former ICC chief Pawar, who was BCCI president from 2005-2008, was also eyeing the post, but had to backtrack after failing to find a proposer and seconder from the east zone.