 "Shashank Manohar")
Lawyer-turned-administrator Shashank Manohar (pictured) was elected unopposed as the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Sunday, ending former president N Srinivasan's hold over the cash-rich body.
Manohar took over at the board's special general meeting (SGM), which lasted less than half-an-hour. He was the only candidate left in the fray, after the deadline for filing nominations ended at 7 p.m. on Saturday.
The election was necessitated by the sudden demise of Jagmohan Dalmiya, who had held the post for seven months after his election in March.
Dalmiya was made the interim president when Srinivasan stepped aside in the wake of revelations that his son-in-law, Gurunath Meiyappan, was involved in betting during the 2013 season of the Indian Premier League.
All the six units of East Zone unanimously proposed Manohar's candidature for the president's post, reflecting Srinivasan's diminishing hold in Board's power politics.
A BCCI by-election needs only one proposer from the zone which is electing the president and it was the East's turn this time. Manohar got the nod from all the six associations and was the lone nomination at the end of the 7 pm deadline yesterday.
Interestingly, one of the proposers for Manohar was Dalmiya's son Avishek, who was representing his family Club, National Cricket Club (NCC) in the SGM.
Srinivasan skipped the meeting and the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association was represented by P S Raman.
The others who also proposed Manohar's name were Sourav Ganguly from Bengal, Sourav Dasgupta from Tripura, Gautam Roy from Assam, Ashirbad Behera of Odisha and Sanjay Singh of Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA).
Manohar's earlier stint was for three years between 2008 -09 and 2010-11.
His appointment also means that Srinivasan now has little chance of coming back into the BCCI fold till 2017 when the Vidarbha man's tenure ends.
