Meeting over Chandigarh Olympic body election process on March 18
The ‘administrator’ appointed on the direction of the Punjab and Haryana High Court has started the proceedings with regard to holding of election to the ‘controversial’ Chandigarh Olympic Association (COA) by issuing a letter inviting sports associations for a meeting regarding the same.
The Chandigarh Sports Council has invited associations for a meeting to discuss the election-related process under the chairmanship of Hari Kallikkat (former Secretary Sports) on March 18 at the UT Guest House at 5 pm. In addition, a public notice has been doing the rounds on the social media in this regard, but it extends the invite to only associations ‘concerned’. The COA, which has been seeing infighting with regard to grabbing the power for many years now, had last seen change in the midway in its tenure in November 2023.
“A meeting regarding the upcoming election of the COA has been fixed on March 18 (5 pm) under the chairmanship of Hari Kallikkat at the conference hall, UT Guest House. The presidents and secretaries are requested to make it convenient to attend the meeting to share their views/suggestions regarding the same,” reads the letter.
No data with Sports Dept
The process of affiliating and disaffiliating units had occurred in every newly elected house of the COA in the past, which is among one of the major reason of conflict. It’s surprising that the Sports Department is not having any data regarding who are the actual affiliated units of the COA or Indian Olympic Association (IOA), and officials are now relying only on the data given by the COA office-bearers, who themselves are in thick of controversies. If this is the case, the same data should also be taken from past presidents/secretaries.
The past events
In January this year, during a hearing on a 2021 writ petition filed by former COA secretary Raghumit Singh Sodhi, the court of Justice Kuldeep Tiwari had ordered fresh election of the association in March. The order also mentions appointment of an ‘administrator’ for conducting the elections. However, it will be interesting to see if the units affiliated in 2021 will be eligible to vote or the units approved by the new house will get a chance to vote.
In 2021, two factions of the COA were at loggerheads over their claims over the association. Two parallel elections were conducted and surprisingly, the IOA had appointed the same observer for both elections. The fight over who is right continued for a while before a final house was formed. However, differences started to emerge in the newly elected house and another blow came last year when the house elected a new president, senior vice-president and treasurer (November 2023).
