Sangeeta Jaitley’s last-minute entry shakes up the DDCA presidential race

When the final list of nominated candidates for next month’s Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) elections was declared on November 19 evening, one name for the presidential post took everyone by surprise — Sangeeta Jaitley, wife of late Arun Jaitley and mother of incumbent President Rohan Jaitley.

Sangeeta’s name was kept so confidential that even senior members of the Rohan Jaitley-CK Khanna Group, which has fielded her, were surprised when the final list was declared. Her nomination was filed dramatically by Rohan and others of the group as she didn’t turn up at the DDCA headquarters at the Ferozeshah Kotla grounds, taking advantage of the rules, said eyewitnesses.

“I can tell you that 99.99% of the group leadership wasn’t aware of it. We all had no inkling and were surprised to find her name when the list was declared,” a source in the group told Patriot. Some people see the move to field Sangeeta as an obvious plan to extend the family rule.

As of now, there are candidates for the president’s post — Sangeeta, Rohan and the challenger, Kirti Azad, a former India cricketer and sitting member of Lok Sabha. Eventually, only two would contest the top post as either Rohan or Sangeeta would fight Azad. A member of the 1983 World Cup-winning Indian team, Azad has led a fight against corruption in the DDCA for several years, even when Arun Jaitley was its head (1999-2013), and continues to raise the same issues.

The source explained that Sangeeta has been fielded mainly as a “backup” candidate and linked the DDCA elections with the impending vacancy of the secretary’s post at the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). “As the present BCCI Secretary Jay Shah is set to join the International Cricket Council as President on December 1, that chair would need to be filled. And as already reported in the media, Rohan is one of the contenders, though he has denied being in the race,” he said.

“There must have been some hitch in finalising the candidate for the BCCI secretary’s post and that’s why Sangeeta has been fielded as a cover for the DDCA top post. The plan seems to be like this: if Rohan goes to the BCCI, she would contest against Kirti and if Rohan stays at the DDCA and contests, she would withdraw. That’s the clear indication we all get from behind this surprise move,” he said.

The source also claimed that Rohan has sent another message with Sangeeta’s nomination. “It is a message for some of the senior members of his group who might have been fancying their chances of occupying the top DDCA post in case Rohan went to the BCCI. After the news of Rohan replacing Shah as BCCI Secretary came out, a few people would have been dreaming big, as a search would have started for a candidate to replace Rohan at the DDCA,” the source gave a peep into the thinking of the group. “Now, that ambition of certain people has been dashed.”

Also read: Delhi’s uphill struggle for Ranji Trophy quarters

The plan

While the Rohan-CK Khanna Group is claiming much work and improvement has been done at the DDCA headquarters and the Ferozeshah Kotla grounds/Arun Jaitley Stadium, Azad is contesting on the plank of corruption — from financial to selection of various Delhi teams. Azad has, in fact, been vociferous about corruption-related issues for several years when Arun Jaitley headed the DDCA — both were in Parliament at the same time for some years — and has upped the tempo during campaigning in the last few weeks.

Corruption in the DDCA is an issue that Virender Sehwag, too, had sensationally raised in 2009 and had threatened to leave Delhi and play for some other state because of that. At the time, Arun Jaitley persuaded him to stay back and promised everyone to take a slew of measures to put the house in order. But the net result is that nothing has changed on the ground. Jaitley did not contest the 2013 DDCA elections and left the association to concentrate full-time on politics.

Families’ rule

In these elections, members of two prominent families have entered the fray – the Jaitleys and the Khannas. The older of the two are the Khannas. CK Khanna, who has been associated with the DDCA for close to 50 years, is a former DDCA Vice President and an ex-BCCI President (acting). He is not contesting as he is over 70 years old. In 2020, he fielded his wife for the treasurer’s post, which she won by beating Gautam Gambhir’s maternal uncle Pawn Gulati. She has also crossed 70. And, now, their daughter Shikha has filed her nomination for two posts – Vice-President and Joint Secretary.

After Arun Jaitley and Rohan, the third member of the Jaitley family, Sangeeta, has joined the fray. In 2020, Rohan was elected unopposed to the president’s post after Rajat Sharma, elected for a three-year term in 2018, dramatically resigned after 473 days in the chair in November 2019. That forced the election for the president’s post midway through the term.

Other factors

Vinod Kumar Tihara, who was elected Secretary as part of Rajat Sharma’s team in 2018, has formed his own group, unlike during the 2021 elections when he was with Rohan and CK Khanna, though he lost the election for the same post. He is again contesting for the secretary’s post and several members of his team are contesting for various other posts.

However, the real group alignments would emerge only after the withdrawal of nominations ends on December 3. Until then, candidates and groups will test each other by bargaining hard.

Elections are being held for 12 apex council posts, including five office-bearers. By the deadline for filing nominations on November 19, a whopping 120 nominations were filed. Apart from the three candidates for the president’s post, 16 nominations were received for the lone vice-president’s position, 11 for the secretary’s post, 22 for the joint secretary’s chair, 18 for the treasurer’s, and 50 for the seven seats of directors. More than half of them are dummy candidates and will withdraw.

Also read: Campaigning starts for full-fledged DDCA election next month

Voters list

The DDCA voters’ list has always been a contentious document. In 2020, when Rohan was elected president, the voters’ list shockingly included his dead father’s name, along with that of former India players Chetan Chauhan, Rakesh Shukla and Man Mohan Sood, and ex-DDCA General Secretary Surinder Singh Sareen, among others, who had passed away before the list was compiled.

Senior DDCA members had estimated that up to 250 dead members were included in the voters’ list. The inclusion of dead members provided an opportunity to the contestants to allegedly manipulate votes, taking advantage of the glaring loophole in the system. That list was prepared under the nose of former Chief Election Commissioner of India, Navin Chawla, whom the DDCA had appointed the Electoral Officer that year.

This time, however, the list has been compiled after scrutiny, following which the names of the dead/untraceable members have been removed. A total of 3,747 members would vote on December 13, 14, and 15 to elect a new DDCA apex council. But, surprisingly, the list doesn’t include some prominent present and past Delhi cricketers, like Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Ayush Badoni, Shikhar Dhawan, and Rajat Bhatia, to name just a few. The election results are scheduled to be declared on December 16.

(The writer is a journalist based in Delhi and has covered sports for over three decades.)