Rival camps bicker over election postponement

New Delhi: The sudden resignation of S Y Quraishi, the chairman of the IOA`s election commission, today sparked off a fresh round of bickering between the two rival camps, who are holding each other responsible for the postponement of the November 25 polls.

The scrutiny process for the IOA`s election was postponed today after Quraishi resigned from the post, leading to a further delay in the entire poll process. IOA had appointed a three member committee headed by Quraishi and two former High Court judges ? Justice J D Kapoor and Justice V K Bali ? to oversee the election process for which Chautala and Randhir Singh had filed nomination for the President’s post. The announcement of his resignation was made at the residence of returning officer Justice Bali when both ? Chautala and Randhir Singh camp? had gathered to get the scrutiny process underway. The boxing federation Chairman, Chautala was represented by himself, along with Hockey India General Secretary Narender Batra, Khokho President, Rajiv Mehta and Weightlifting President, B P Baisya and their lawyer, while the Randhir Singh group was represented by Judo Federation of India President Jagdish Tytler and Net Ball Federation general secretary Hari Om Kaushik and their lawyer, Atul Nanda. As soon as the news of Quraishi?s resignation was broken, Randhir Singh`s lawyer is learnt to have demanded immediate postponement of the scrutiny process. However, lawyers from Abhey Singh Chautala?s side continued to push for the election process to go ahead as the other two members of the election panel were present. "The way, lawyer from Randhir camp reacted to the news it looked like they were already anticipating the news and found a way to postpone the process because the numbers are clearly not in their favour," alleged an official belonging to Chautala group. The scrutiny of nomination papers would now be held after acting president V K Malhotra appoints a new member/ chairman of the Pannel. Meanwhile, Kho Kho Federation of India secretary Suresh Sharma has blasted the Randhir camp for delaying the election process on flimsy reasons. "Election is a democratic process and nobody has the right to stop or discourage the process," he said. The Randhir camp have accused the Chautala camp of delaying the entire process. "It is the Chautala group which is delaying everything. They don`t want the election to be held on schedule", the official alleged. PTI