BHUBANESWAR 22-Nov-2015
Sports bodies in India are often condemned for avoiding elections and helping their office-bearers stay in power unlawfully for many terms. But Odisha State Badminton Association (OSBA) proved to be an exception as two rival groups within the state body conducted elections by their own in successive days.
While one group led by Pradip Mohanty conducted elections in a city hotel here yesterday, another group, led by Binod Chandra Dash, did the same at Barabati Stadium today. While Mohanty was re-elected as secretary, Das became the secretary of the new group. Incidentally, both Mohanty and Dash had worked together to take control over the state body, ousting the then secretary Iqbal Raheman in June 2011.
In today’s election, which was supervised by Odisha State Table Tennis Association secretary Rabindra Kumar Parida on behalf of Odisha Olympic Association (OOA), Rushinath Sahu and Gangadhar Behera were present as representatives of OOA and State Sports Department (Odisha Council of Sports) respectively.
According to Dash, the Annual General meeting and elections of OSBA was held in pursuance of the decision of a special meeting of the state body held earlier this year on September 27. He alleged that Mohanty did not convene the AGM even once in past four years and was not updating the financial transactions.
With Dash having the support of OOA and Mohanty that of Badminton Association of India (BAI), the dispute is bound to escalate in the coming days. But one thing is certain that the tussle for power among office-beaers is going to cause inconvenience for shuttlers of the state.
OFFICE-BEARERS OF BINOD DASH GROUP: President: Sangram Keshari Nayak; Working president: Raghabananda Dalal (Phulbani); Vice-presidents: Surulal Matari (Bolangir), Debabrata Dash (Jajpur), Suresh Chandra Mohanty (Ganjam); Secretary: Binod Chandra Dash; Joint-secretaries: Sriharsha Routray, Kamal Das; Treasurer: Kartik Das; Executive Committee members: Anoop Kumar Patro, Bishnubrata Dash, Bijay Das, Gyana Ranjan Patra, Mir Mohammad Ali, Basanta Behera, Kameswar Rao.
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PHOTO: Members of Binod Dash (2nd from left) group at Barabati Stadium in Cuttack on Nov 22, 2015.
