Pressure mounted from within the BCCI on N Srinivasan to resign as its President today with two Board heavyweights, Rajeev Shukla and Arun Jaitley, asking him to "disassociate" himself from the inquiry proceedings against his son-in-law and IPL franchise CSK.
Interestingly, Shukla, who is also the IPL Chairman, did not utter the word resignation in reference to Srinivasan when he met the press after a meeting with Jaitley, a BCCI Vice President.
Shukla's demand came on a day the Union Sports Ministry also entered the fray to ask for Srinivasan's resignation on moral grounds. There has been relentless media pressure on the "silence" of the BCCI officials on the issue of Srinivasan's continuance.
The new momentum against Srinivasan, who owns CSK, grew a day after Board functionary Jyotiraditya Scindia asked him to resign pending the inquiry against his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, who was the Team Principal of CSK, before being arrested on charges of betting.
"Till the pendency of inquiry, he should disassociate himself from the procedure as earlier also, it was discussed that he should disassociate. Disassociate, what it means is very clear.
"He will have to take a decision now. Me and Mr Jaitley had suggested him," Shukla said after meeting Jaitley.
"Credibility of the Board is supreme for us. We will act in best interest of the Board and Indian cricket," he added.
A three-member BCCI inquiry committee is probing Meiyappan and the spot-fixing allegations against three Rajasthan Royals players and its franchise as well as the Chennai Super Kings.
Justice T Jayaram Chouta, former Judge of the Karnataka and Madras High Courts, Justice R Balasubramanian, former Judge of the Madras High Court, and BCCI Secretary Sanjay Jagdale are members of the Commission.
