bhaichung bhutia: AIFF polls: As expected, straight fight for 3 top posts, Bhutia vs Chaubey for president

Legendary Bhaichung Bhutia is up against former goalkeeper Kalyan Choubey in the All India Football Federation (AIFF) elections to be held on September 2 as there will be a straight fight between two candidates for the top three posts. Choubey, a former Mohun Bagan and Bengal BJP leader from East Bengal goalkeeper, is considered to be at the forefront with the support of politically important state associations such as Gujarat and Arunachal Pradesh.

After the deadline for withdrawal of nominations ended at 1 pm on Tuesday, Returning Officer Umesh Sinha released the final list of candidates for each post for the elections.

The electoral college of 34 representatives of state unions has already been issued by the Returning Officer.

Elections were to be held for the posts of a president, a vice-president, a treasurer and 14 executive members. Six former players – four men and two women – would later be co-opted as members of the executive committee with voting rights.

Only 14 candidates are in the fray for the posts of members of the Executive Committee, all of them are sure to be declared elected.

They are GP Palguna, Avijit Paul, P Anilkumar, Valanka Natasha Alemao, Maloji Raje Chhatrapati, Menla Athenpa, Mohan Lal, Arif Ali, K Nibou Sekhoz, Lalnaghinglowa Hamar, Deepak Sharma, Vijay Bali and Syed Imtiaz Hussain.

Rajasthan Association President Manvendra Singh, a Congress leader, fielded against NA Haris for the post of Vice President alone. Haris is the President of Karnataka FA and sitting Congress MLA from the state.

Manvendra’s state association had supported Bhutia’s candidature.

Andhra Pradesh State Association president Gopalkrishna Kosaraju and Arunachal Pradesh’s Kipa Ajay are the two candidates for the treasurer’s post.

Kosaraju, who proposed Bhutia as the presidential candidate, had written a letter on August 26 to withdraw his candidature. But sources said that he had not filled any form to withdraw his nomination and hence his candidature remained.

The elections were to be held earlier under

Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) on August 28

But, in a judgment on August 22, the SC struck down the mandate of the CoA, did not allow 36 former players to join the Electoral College and postponed the elections by a week to save the Women’s U-17 World Cup. Karya, which was hosted by FIFA, is in trouble after the AIFF was suspended.

FIFA lifted the ban on 26 August, paving the way for India to host the Women’s Under-17 World Cup in October.

Originally published at Pen 18