Indian basketball: Cat jumps out of the bag !

In the ongoing power struggle in the Basketball Federation of India (BFI), the cat is out of the bag !

Poonam Mahajan, the daughter of former Union Minister Pramod Mahajan, who was shot dead by his brother at his home in 2006, has been nominated for the post of president by the faction masterminded by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BFI, Roopam Sharma.

The 34-year-old Poonam, elected Member of Parliament, of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from Mumbai North Central constituency, was inducted into Indian basketball straightaway as the president of the Maharashtra association in January. So, within three months, she would be the president of BFI, out of nowhere, if her case gets ratified.

Roopam herself would be the secretary general of the federation while Mukut Medhi, the vociferous member from Assam, has been nominated for the post of treasurer.

Much in contrast, the group headed by the president of BFI, RS Gill, who has served three terms in office, has nominated the senior vice president, K. Govindraj of Karnataka, for the post of president. Govindraj has been the secretary of Karnataka association for more than 15 years. He has also been president of the Karnataka Olympic Association. He has the experience, among others, of hosting the Asian basketball championship in Bengaluru.

Chander Mukhi Sharma of Chandigarh and V. Raghothaman of Puducherry have been nominated for the post of secretary general and treasurer respectively, by the group headed by RS Gill, who had combined strongly with the late Harish Sharma, in projecting a healthy image of the game.

Incidentally, the president alone is empowered by the Constitution of the BFI to decide on the election.

The secretary general of BFI, Ajay Sud who quit on being forced to change the venue of the election from Bengaluru to Pune, made a categorical announcement that he had made the change without the approval of the president, and had allowed his authority to be usurped by a 'scanned signature''. His çlarification has been conveniently sidelined as that of ''Himachal Pradesh secretary general'' by the CEO, while she has vehemently questioned the authority of the president to accept the resignation of Ajay Sud !

Moreover, the president has also been accused of not entertaining part of the electoral college. Interestingly, most of the member associations nominated members to both the meetings in Bengaluru on March 27 and Pune on March 28. Some of them sent the nominations only for the Pune meeting to the BFI office, for which the president had not advised any notice.

Moreover, the president was clear that only elected members of the state could be nominated, whereas people like Nandini Basappa of Karnataka has been nominated from Assam, and Ashok Rangeen of Delhi, from Rajasthan !

It is also pointed out that most of the members, with honourable exceptions, supporting the CEO group have done precious little for basketball in their state, and hardly field teams for the national championships. However, in a democratic set up, there is an equality of right for competence and mediocrity, experience and youthful arrogance, that cannot be questioned.

For sure, running a national federation is not a bed of roses. It is a struggle to conduct every national championship, and the numerous age group events, apart from building the various national teams. With the rich resources from Reliance, ensuring a better life for the players at least during the national championships, the biggest challenge of rising resources is not faced by the current set up of BFI.

That explains the urge of all and sundry to jump into the administration, to control and capitalise on the readily available resources. Like the overwhelming support of the government, the beauty of Indian sports is that every solution leads to many problems !

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and the Union Sports Ministry have the power to set the house in order, but they are also often driven by the political will and vested interests.

In such a scenario, it may be difficult to ensure justice. But, hope springs eternal, and miracles do happen.

Why blame anyone, when the scriptures had spelt long ago that anarchy would spread its tentacles in the Kali Yuga, reducing morality and speeding up the degeneration of civilisation !