Chaturvedi replaces Chautala as new TTFI president

Lucknow: Retired IAS officer Prabhat C Chaturvedi has replaced the jailed Ajay Singh Chautala as the Table Tennis Federation of India President after the elections held at the TTFI`s Annual General Meeting here.

Elected for four years, Chaturvedi was the senior vice-president of the federation, and replaces Chautala, whose third term at the helm ended recently. He is currently lodged in jail following his conviction in a teachers recruitment scam in Haryana. The new president will have Dhanraj Choudhary as secretary-general and Mahinder Pal Singh as treasurer, the two other principal office-bearers of the federation. Choudhary, who took over from Mool Chand Chouhan after his demise three years ago, is in his second term, while Singh, a first-timer, replaces BK Bawa, as treasurer. TTFI, which has adopted the new sports code at a special GBM held in January this year, held elections as per the guidelines set out by the sports ministry. The elections were conducted by returning officer UK Bansal, a retired IPS officer, in the presence of government observer Rachna Govil and Indian Olympic Association representative Anandeshwar Pandey. All office-bearers, including one senior vice-president, eight vice-presidents, four joint secretary and seven out of eight executive council members, were elected unanimously. The posts of one senior vice-president and one EC member have been kept vacant as there weren`t sufficient nominations. They will be filled later with the due process of election. The newly-elected members decided on the annual calendar of events and drew up a bid chart from various state affiliates. As per agreement from state units, the senior nationals will be held in Bihar, while the youth and junior nationals in Assam and the cadet and sub-junior nationals in Rajasthan. Punjab (north), Andhra Pradesh (south), North Bengal (east) and Maharashtra (west) will conduct the zonals this year. All these domestic events will see a total prize purse of Rs 50 lakh being disbursed to the paddlers up to the top eight places. But the most immediate and biggest event on TTFI calendar is the Commonwealth Championships to be held in New Delhi between May 5 and 10. Besides, the TTFI will also host two more international events -- ITF Global Circuit event in October (Maharashtra) and South Asian championships (July-August) -- this year. The office-bearers: Prabhat C. Chaturvedi (President), Dushyant Chautala (Senior vice-president), DV Sundar, Rajeev P Bodas, S M Sultan, Sanjay Singh, Majinder Singh Sirsa, Sudhanshu Pandey, Arun Kumar Banerjee, and Chiranjib Choudhury (all vice-presidents), Dhanraj Choudhary (secretary-general), Mahinder Pal Singh (treasurer), Haresh Sangtani, Mantu Ghosh, Jayesh Acharya and Tridip Duvarah (all joint secretaries), Jhanja Tripathy, Srinivasan Shridhar, TH. Nandkishore Singh, Yatin Tipnis, Manjit Dua, Pankaj Sharma, Vivek Satyajeet, and Vijayarangam (all EC members). PTI