Lalit Modi's status as RCA chief in doubt

There is confusion over Lalit Modi's status as president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association, with reports of him being voted out by the association's members coming in, even while RCA deputy-president Mehmood Abdi rubbished claims of his ouster.

RCA and BCCI officials met in Jaipur on Saturday to discuss the Rajasthan XI team selection as per the Rajasthan High Court directive. Following that meeting, an anti-Modi lobby, headed by RCA vice-president Amin Pathan, claimed to have met separately and voted Modi out of the RCA. However, Modi aide Abdi said the RCA was fully behind him as the president.

Pathan said the supposed move to remove Modi was taken with a view to break the banned association's impasse with the BCCI. "When we elected Lalit Modi, we were told the RCA wouldn't face any problem. We didn't know it would lead to a ban from the BCCI and our players would suffer," Pathan said. "All these hassles in fielding our teams in different tournaments are not acceptable. We have elected a new body and will write to the BCCI to accept us."

Soon after, Abdi told ESPNcricinfo: "These are all disgruntled elements, which are working for the interests that are anti-RCA. The entire association is behind Mr Lalit Modi and there is no change in his status." Later, he added in a statement, "The so-called meeting of the RCA executive committee in Jaipur was wholly unauthorised and illegal. Moreover, there was no notice of any such meeting and it was organised in a very clandestine manner away from the RCA office. All those claiming to be members of the executive committee attending that meeting were fake identities.Strict disciplinary action will be taken against all those found involved in this mischief."

Modi, speaking to PTI, put the "revolt" down to team-selection issues. "Some disgruntled members probably didn't get their way in selection of boys and thus revolted. Not worried about such vested people," Modi said. "No interference in selection has always been my mantra - if someone wants to revolt, most welcome. But on my watch, no interference or blackmailing will be allowed."

Aside from Modi, Pathan, one of the association's six vice-presidents, also claimed to have ousted Abdi and treasurer Pawan Goyal in an extraordinary general meeting. Pathan also announced himself as the acting president. On the other hand, Abdi said neither the president nor the secretary Sumendra Tiwary had convened a general body meeting.

The BCCI members did not take any part in the second meeting. In the first meeting, which dealt with the Rajasthan teams' selection, BCCI general manager, game development, Ratnakar Shetty met with Abdi, Tiwary and other RCA representatives to start the selection procedure as per court directive. Abdi and the other RCA representatives handed over some of the requisite documents to start the selection procedure to Shetty and court-appointed coordinator Taposh Chatterjee. It was then decided that the junior selection trials will be held in the coming week. The date of senior selection trials will be decided later.

The RCA was suspended in May by the BCCI after former IPL chairman Modi, who was expelled by the BCCI last year for "committing acts of serious misconduct and indiscipline", was elected the state association's president. The BCCI suspended it for allowing a banned individual to be a part of its affairs, and, later, omitted the various teams representing Rajasthan from its domestic programme for the upcoming season.

That left the players anxious and confused as to what their future holds, and eventually a petition was filed in the in the Rajasthan High Court on behalf of 75 Rajasthan cricketers, asking that they not be made to suffer "only for one reason, which is the grudge between BCCI and RCA". Subsequently, the court passed an interim order appointing selection committees to pick teams to represent the state in various BCCI domestic tournaments in 2014-15, but not under the usual banner of the RCA. While that came as a boost for the players, the impasse between the BCCI and the RCA continued.

Pathan had previously been a Modi loyalist. The secretary of the Kota District Cricket Association, he had even accompanied Abdi when Modi's nomination papers were filed for the RCA election in November.