Kathmandu, December 14

The controversial elective General Assembly of Cricket Association of Nepal elected a 17-member central executive committee under the leadership of Chatur Bahadur Chand here on Monday.

Chand, who was vice-president in the previous committee, was elected unopposed along with first vice-president Binod Kumar Mainali, general secretary Ashok Nath Pyakurel and 12 members. Chand and Mainai were in fray for the post of president but the latter agreed for the post of first vice-president, while no one challenged Pyakurel in the post of general secretary.

The election was held only for two vice-president posts after all three candidates refused to withdraw their nominations. Although the election committee had set the deadline of 11:40PM to withdraw the names, the officials were allowed to do that until 2:00AM. In the voting for the two vice-president posts, Sailesh Chaudhary garnered 57 votes, while Diwakar Ghale accumulated 37 and Naresh Rana remained at the botto with 33 votes.

A total of 25 candidates had filed their nominations for 12 members but 13 withdrew their names from the race. Jeni Shrestha, Dawood Ansari, Thakur Pratap Thapa, Prashant Malla, Sanjaya Raj Singh, Jayanti Bhatta, Roshan Singh, Rishi Gautam, Ratan Kathayat, Hari Regmi, Kiran Rana and Raju Babu Shrestha were elected unanimously. Four vice-presidents and one each secretary and treasurer will be nominated from among the elected members.

Earlier, the AGM got underway after police intervened during the inaugural session at the Raj Gharana Restaurant. A faction of CAN — le by general secretary Pyakurel — had called the fourth AGM for 11:00AM but the programme was postponed for 3:00PM upon the request of Youth and Sports Minister Satya Narayan Mandal. The minister instead flew for Lukla with National Sports Council Member Secretary Keshab Kumar Bista without informing the CAN officials. NSC had directed the CAN not to hold the AGM until further instructions.

The CAN officials quickly managed another chief guest, Sports Department Chief of Nepali Congress Dhanraj Gurung, for the inauguration of the AGM. But the venue turned out to a battle field after a group of representatives and fans — led by vice-president Keshav Ghimire — gheraoed the rostrum and started shouting slogans demanding the postponement of the elections while Chand was addressing the AGM.

After some scuffles among the representatives of the two sides, police took control over the situation and sent all of them outside the hall. The AGM resumed after security personnel allowed only the official representatives with identity cards inside the hall.

President Tanka Angbuhang, vice-presidents Ghimire, Sunil Amatya, Ram Chandra Sharma, Deepak Koirala and Secretary Thakur Pahari were among the

11 officials from the executive committee who opposed the AGM saying the NSC and the International Cricket Council were not in favour of the elections. Vice Preident Amatya also read out the letter sent by the NSC. Most of them also did not attend the closed session.

A total of 71 out of 83 representatives attended the opening session, while more than 60 were present in the closed session. “We had an attendance of more than 65 per cent in the closed session and all the representatives wanted to hold elections today at any cost,” said General Secretary Ashok Nath Pyakurel.

But the representatives were not happy with the process of elections. “We were invited for the two-day AGM and these people are trying to finish everything today,” said one of the district representatives. “This is insane, I was shocked to see such a scene in the afternoon,” he said referring to the inauguration session. “I felt pity on them.”