Kalyan Chaubey beats Bhaichung Bhutia to become new AIFF president

Kalyan Chaubey is a former goalkeeper with Mohun Bagan and East Bengal. This is a result that was expected as former captain Bhutia did not have many supporters in the 34-member voters' list made up of state association representatives.

Source: Twitter

Footballer Kalyan Chaubey beat another former national-level footballer Bhaichung Bhutia to become the president of All India Football Federation. He beat Bhutia by margin of 33-1 on Friday. The 45-year-old Chaubey is a former goalkeeper with Mohun Bagan and East Bengal. This is a result that was expected as former captain Bhutia did not have many supporters in the 34-member voters' list made up of state association representatives.

The 'Sikkimese Sniper', also 45, could not even get his state association representative as proposer or seconder for filing his nomination papers.
Chaubey, a BJP politician who lost the last parliamentary election for the Krishnanagar seat in West Bengal, never played for the India senior team though he was in the squad on few occasions.

We congratulate Mr. @kalyanchaubey on being elected as the President, Mr. @mlanaharis as the Vice President, and Mr. Kipa Ajay as the Treasurer of the All India Football Federation __#AIFFGeneralBodyElections2022 __ #IndianFootball _ pic.twitter.com/YRwexiUntx— Indian Football Team (@IndianFootball) September 2, 2022

He, however, played for India in age-group international tournaments. He was also a former goalkeeper at both Mohun Bagan and East Bengal.
In fact, Bhutia and Chaubey were one-time teammates at East Bengal.

Karnataka Football Association president N A Haris, a sitting Congress MLA, won the election for the lone post of vice president, beating Manvendra Singh of Rajasthan FA. Arunachal Pradesh's Kipa Ajay beat Gopalakrishna Kosaraju of Andhra Pradesh for the treasurer's post.

Kosaraju and Manvendra proposed and seconded Bhutia.

All the 14 candidates who had filed nominations for as many executive committee members' posts were elected unopposed.

In his first reactions after the polls, Bhutia said, "I will keep working for the betterment of Indian football in future. Congratulations to Kalyan, I hope he will take Indian football forward.

"Thanks to all football fans across India for showing supporting me so much. I've been working for football before the elections, and will continue to do the same. Yes, I'm there in executive committee."

The elections of the AIFF office bearers brought to an end a sordid saga which saw the ouster of former president Praful Patel for failing to hold polls due in December 2020, the formation of the Committee of Administrators and its ensuing removal by the Supreme Court, and the suspension of India by world football governing body FIFA for "undue influence from third parties".

The new executive committee comprises G P Palguna, Avijit Paul, P Anilkumar, Valanka Natasha Alemao, Maloji Raje Chhatrapati, Menla Ethenpa, Mohan Lal, Arif Ali, K Neibou Sekhose, Lalnghinglova Hmar, Deepak Sharma, Vijay Bali and Syed Imtiaz Husain. Bhutia, I M Vijayan, Shabbir Ali and Climax Lawrence will be in the EC as players' representatives.

With PTI inputs