Pawar, Munde in straight contest for MCA presidentship

The biennial polls of the Mumbai Cricket Association on October 18 will see a straight fight for the presidentship between two Maharashtra political heavyweights - Sharad Pawar and Gopinath Munde.
Outgoing MCA president Ravi Savant announced today, the last day for filing nominations, that there were only two candidates for presidentship - Pawar and Munde. The announcement laid to rest the speculation that Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan may throw his hat into the ring.
Chavan was made a voting member by the Mazgaon Cricket Club recently but he did not file nomination.
Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar was MCA president from 2001 to 2011, before former Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh occupied the chair till his death in August 2012.

BJP leader Munde is making his debut in the MCA elections as an independent candidate while NCP supremo Pawar is being supported by all three rival panels fighting the elections.
Savant, who is contesting the polls as a vice presidential candidate from his group, said that were eight candidates for the two vice presidents' post, and the list included former Test opener Lalchand Rajput.

The other Test cricketer in the fray is former pacer Abey Kuruvilla, who is to contest for one of the two joint secretaries' post. Rajput has filed his nomination for this post from the Vijay Patil panel, along with Kuruvilla.

There are five candidates for the post of treasurer including current vice president Vinod Deshpande, former joint secretary Pravin Barve, who has filed for the joint secretary's nomination too as a part of the panel formed by former vice president Prof Ratnakar Shetty, former managing committee member Ravi Mandrekar, and Savant.
The last date for withdrawing nominations is October 14, said Savant, after the nominations are scrutinised tomorrow.