IOA prez, EC members at loggerheads

The rift between Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president PT Usha and the Executive Committee doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon. The Executive Committee meeting that was called to ratify the appointment of Raghuram Iyer as CEO did not bear fruit as all the EC members led by senior vice-president Ajay Patel did not approve his appointment.

Interestingly, all this happened in front of Jerome Poivey — head of NOC Relations Department of the International Olympic Committee — who joined the proceedings through a virtual conference.

The meeting chaired by Usha started on a sour note after the EC members insisted on the discussion on additional 14 agenda items and not on approving Iyer’s appointment. The meeting ended without any deliberation as Usha refused to entertain their request and wanted the discussion to happen only around ratification of the CEO.

Patel, treasurer Sahdev Yadav, Gagan Narang, Rajlaxmi Singh Deo, Alaknanda Ashok, Rohit Rajpal, Bhupender Singh Bajwa, Dola Banerjee and Yogeshwar Dutt all attended the meeting, while Kalyan Chaubey and Lt Gen (retd) Harpal Singh joined the meeting virtually.

In fact, the EC members after refusing to ratify Iyer’s appointment proposed that a fresh advertisement for the post of CEO should be floated by the IOA.

Visibly upset, Usha criticised the EC members for failing to deliberate on Iyer’s appointment. “They were first saying that the CEO’s salary is too high and now when we have agreed to renegotiate the salary they have changed their demands and want us to restart the process of appointment again,” Usha said.

“In the meeting where Raghu Iyer’s name was put forward, they agreed with a catch that salary has to be negotiated. None of them gave me an upper or lower cap for salary. All they said was ‘you negotiate’. It is all recorded on camera and now they want us to go through the entire process again,” she added.

Usha further said that she will pursue this matter as per the constitution provisions because CEO appointment is a must for an organisation like the IOA.

Interestingly, after Usha left the meeting, the rest of the EC members continued with the discussions. In the minutes of the meeting circulated late on Thursday and without the president’s approval, they have decided to reappoint Kalyan Chaubey, who is the joint secretary, as the interim CEO till the time a new CEO is appointed.

“The ratification of Mr Iyer as CEO was not approved. Further, it was decided that the process of the appointment of CEO be reinitiated with new terms of reference,” the minutes signed by 10 EC members read.

“The members... decided that the acting CEO Sh Kalyan Chaubey who is the joint secretary of the IOA shall continue to discharge the duties as per provisions laid out in the constitution,” it added.