Jagmohan Dalmiya all set to return as BCCI president

New Delhi: It's safe to assume that Jagmohan Dalmiya is the new president of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). According to reliable reports, the veteran cricket administrator has filed his nomination for the plump post on Sunday. He remains the lone candidate with other contender, Sharad Pawar failing to get a proposer from East zone, whose turn it is to nominate the president.

Earlier, it was believed that Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar will contest for the post. However, with the latest development, the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) president emerged as the consensus candidate for both the factions, that of Sharad Pawar and N Srinivasan.

Despite loyalists from both the camps remaining tight lipped, the nomination effectively cleared all possible roadblocks in Dalmiya's path to the BCCI top post. The much-delayed Annual General Meeting will finally be held on Monday in Chennai, wherein a set of office bearers will be elected for a tenure of three years.

On Saturday itself, 74-year-old Dalmiya became the front-runner for the board presidency since no other name was found unanimously acceptable to all the units loyal to Srinivasan.

Dalmiya, under whose leadership Indian cricket emerged as the ultimate money mincing machine, filed his nominations today with support from Kolkata's own National Cricket Club and other affiliate associations from East Zone – Assam, Jharkhand, Odisha and Tripura. It is the turn of East Zone to nominate a president.

It was also widely reported that the incumbent Srinivasan, who was barred from contesting BCCI elections by the Supreme Court of India following the Indian Premier League (IPL) spot fixing scandal, was the original choice to represent the East Zone in this election.

In the current IPL spot-fixing scandal hearing, the apex court has already questioned the conflict of interest regarding Srinivasan's position as the board president and IPL team owner.

In between, nomination papers for other positions in the board have also been filed. The Pawar group has nominated Anurag Thakur for secretary, Rajiv Shukla for treasurer and Chetan Desai for the post of joint secretary, while the Srinivasan camp has nominated incumbent Sanjay Patel, Anirudh Chaudhry and Amitabh Chaudhary for the posts of secretary, treasurer and joint secretary, respectively.