Devajit Saika and Prabhtej Singh Bhatia are set to be elected unopposed as the new Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary and treasurer, respectively. Their names are the only two featuring in the final list of contesting candidates which was shared on Tuesday.
The BCCI secretary post was left vacant after Jay Shah took over as the ICC chairman on December 1. Saika had been appointed as the interim secretary.
Meanwhile, the treasurer post was up for grabs after Ashish Shelar took oath as a cabinet minister in the Maharashtra government.
The deadline to file the nominations ended last week and the withdrawal of nominations ended on Tuesday at 2 PM. The final list of nominations was prepared by the BCCI electoral officer and former Chief Election Commissioner of India, Achal Kumar Joti, on Tuesday.
The election will take place on January 12 on the sidelines of the BCCI's SGM. The results, which are a formality will also be announced on the same day.
Saika was earlier appointed as the interim secretary after board president Roger Binny used his constitutional powers. Binny cited clause 7(1) (d) of the BCCI constitution to hand secretarial powers to Saika, who is a former first-class cricketer and also an Advocate General of the state.
"The president shall in the event of vacancy or indisposition shall delegate the functions to another office bearer until the vacancy is duly filled up or indisposition ceases.
"Accordingly, I delegate the functions of secretary to you till the post is filled up by processes laid down as per BCCI rules and regulations. I am confident you will perform the duties to the best of your abilities and with aplomb," Binny wrote to Saikia.
Shah has served in the BCCI secretary role since October 2019. Shah worked on different facets in his role as the BCCI secretary. He gave special emphasis on domestic cricket and also equalled the match fees of the women's players to that of the men's players.
Shah also credits conducting the IPL 2020 amidst COVID-19 as his biggest achievement. "The Olympics, English Premier League and French Open had already been postponed/cancelled. We created an isolation bubble within which we conducted the tournament. We demonstrated to the world what BCCI could achieve," Shah had told Times of India earlier in the year.
