The fresh elections were conducted on May 26 during the meeting of the General Council Meeting of the Gymnastics Federation of India at Haryana Olympic Bhawan in Panchkula, under the charge of Justice (retired) G C Garg, a retired High Court Judge who was appointed as returning officer.
This election process was as per the model election bye- laws mandated by the Union Ministry of Sports & Youth Affairs, for national sports federations as well as the provisions of the Constitution of GFI, after the last election held in July last year was cancelled by the Ministry.
The July last year election in which Jaspal Kandhari was elected president of the GFI was rejected by Government of India and had sought fresh elections within 45 days. Kandhari had challenged the Ministry's decision of cancelling his election, but did not get any relief from the High Court.
"We will soon revamp the Federation and hold the Seniors, Juniors and Sub-Juniors Championships as well as the Federation Cup Championship, within a period of six months," Rathee told PTI after being elected.
Rathee is currently the Principal Adviser (Home and CID) to Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and retired as state's Director General of Police (CID). In view of the government instructions, the electoral college was finalised after considering the objections received from various quarters and it was published on the website www.Gfi.Org.In, created for the elections, by the Returning Officer.
Nominations were filed for the various positions and sufficient time was given to contenders for campaigning. No polling was required as there was only one nomination for the Post of President, Secretary, Treasurer against one post each, 10 nominations for Vice-President against the 15 posts, four nominations for the seven posts of Joint Secretary and four nominations for the seven posts of Executive Members. MORE