The election of BCCI secretary Jay Shah as the Chairman of the ICC has triggered a search for a new BCCI secretary. Jay Shah’s term at the ICC starts on December 1, 2024. Rohan Jaitley, President of the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA), is among the frontrunners to succeed Shah. Jaitley, a practising lawyer in the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court, has been the President of DDCA for the last four years.He is the son of late BJP leader and Union minister Arun Jaitley. There are many other contenders for the post. Among them are Gujarat Cricket Association President Dhanraj Parimal Nathwani, IPL Chairman Arun Dhumal and Goa Cricket Association President Vipul Phadke. Sources, however, said that Jaitley is the most favoured among the members of the BCCI board. The BCCI secretary, considered the most powerful post in Indian cricket, is elected by BCCI’s member associations. There are no specific qualifications to become BCCI Secretary. A cricket administrator with a good record is chosen for the post. Jay Shah was re-elected as BCCI secretary in 2022 and his term expires in 2025. The new secretary will be elected for three years. J&K PollsBJP pulls out all stops to form govt in J&KThe defeat of Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti in the Kashmir Valley in the last Lok Sabha elections has given wings to the BJP’s dream of forming its first government in Jammu and Kashmir. The party sees a real chance of making inroads into the Kashmir Valley through friendly parties and forming its first government in J&K. According to sources, the BJP is itself focussing on 35 seats in the Jammu region where it has mobilised most of its resources. The creation of the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir through the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 raised the number of seats in the assembly from 83 to 90 MLAs. The constituencies were redrawn through a delimitation process to create seven more seats in J&K – six in the Jammu region and one in Kashmir. This has given an advantage to the BJP as it enjoys huge support in the Jammu region. The party hopes to reap a rich electoral dividend from the delimitation exercise. Another move that the party hopes to benefit from is the J&K government’s decision to expand the OBC list to include new castes and add new tribes, including Paharis, to the list of Scheduled Tribes in the state. But the release of Engineer Rashid from Tihar in the middle of the election process may prove to be a trump card for the BJP. Rashid is more popular in the Kashmir Valley than the BJP’s friends Sajjad Lone, Altaf Bukhari and Ghulam Nabi Azad. The possibility of his joining hands with the BJP after the elections is not ruled out. Sources in the BJP said that if Rashid’s candidates perform as well as he did in the last Lok Sabha election and the BJP wins the expected number of seats in Jammu, there would be a real chance for the party to form a government in J&K.Shahid FaridiThe writer is Resident EditorTNIE, New Delhi.Follow him on X @Shahid_Faridi_
Source link
