How can a handful of people and 30 votes be allowed make a mockery of the electoral process in the most popular sport in a democratic country as large as ours? It’s both a joke and a crying shame and needs some thinking at a different level.That’s the opinion of former Chief Election Commissioner M.S. Gill, a famously avid cricket fan. As the BCCI gears up for an election — or at least an AGM — next week Gill says he blames the Board and its officials for the consistency with which they allow chaos to creep in.‘‘When the Election Commission can handle 68 crore voters and nine lakh polling booths across the country, handling 30 votes should not pose any problems’’, he told The Indian Express today. ‘‘The problem lies elsewhere.’’The AGM in Kolkata is to be handled by his former colleague T.A. Krishnamurthy, an appointment which, Gill says, ‘‘was the best thing to happen’’.In the long run, the best way to sort things out is for the Supreme Court to intervene in the matter and order reform.The major change needed is in the number of votes controlled by certain states. ‘‘Isn’t ridiculous that a state like Maharashtra has four votes: Mumbai, Maharashtra, Vidarbha and the Cricket Club of India (CCI)? Similarly, Gujarat, which doesn’t have a great cricket tradition, has three votes — Gujarat, Baroda and Saurashtra — and Andhra Pradesh two votes (Andhra and Hyderabad). But bigger states like Uttar Pradesh or Madhya Pradesh have just one vote each. Where is the sense of proportion?’’The BCCI, he says, was set up in the days of Maharaja Bhupendra Singh as a club before attaining the status of a national body. ‘‘Today, it is a national body and its players are allowed to wear the national colours and the batch. But where is the national character when BCCI elections are conducted? In those days, a state like Punjab used to be South Punjab and East Punjab until it got merged to become Punjab. Such steps should be taken to bring about the national character and stop manipulation at the time of voting,’’ he said.There’s another problem that needs to be fixed: The practice of interested parties in the BCCI going to court at the time of the election. ‘‘This must be stopped immediately. You can’t allow this to happen year after year, election after election. It’s almost funny: when the election takes place in the south, somebody files a petition seeking a stay in a Mizoram court and if the polls are conducted in the north, somebody else goes to a court down south.’’This, he says, is nothing but a way of buying time to manipulate things to one group’s advantage. ‘‘The Indian Constitution clearly stipulates that once elections (general or assembly) are declared, there is no provision to seek a stay in a court of law. Similarly, the apex court can intervene and put a stop to ‘stay business’ because any deliberation and delay only helps the cause of those vested interests in the BCCI.’’
