Jayesh is TS Olympic Association President
In an interesting turn of events IAS officer Jayesh Ranjan was elected president of the Telangana Olympic Association at the polls held at Lal Bahadur Stadium on Sunday.
However, most of the candidates on his panel suffered crushing defeats, casting doubts on the smooth functioning of the perpetually troubled state body.
Jayesh, who is the principal secretary of the industries & commerce (I&C) and information technology (IT) departments of the Telangana state government, was disqualified at the nomination stage due to a technical flaw. However, he moved the High Court to overturn the Returning Officer’s judgement and contested against veteran K. Ranga Rao, whom he defeated 46 votes to 33.
In a tight contest for General Secretary, incumbent K. Jagadishwer Yadav defeated A. Jagan Mohan Rao (of Jayesh Ranjan panel) by two votes. The Kabaddi official polled 41 votes as against the Handball administrator’s 39.
Jagan Mohan Rao cried conspiracy though, and vowed legal action. “The voter list was altered after the AGM. The Khammam Olympic Association’s vote was misrepresented. I will take this matter up with the courts as well as the Indian Olympic Association,” he said.
K. Maheshwar of Ranga Rao panel was elected Treasurer, beating Kunta Pani Rao.
Dr Mohammad Ali Rafath, S. R. Premraj, Saral Talwar and Dr S. Venugopala Chary were elected vice-presidents while table tennis official P. Prakash Raju lost.
For the four joint secretaries’ posts, Norman Isaac (63 votes), P. Malla Reddy (49), M. Rama Krishna (45) from Ranga Rao’s panel emerged victors while only A. Someshwar (40) from the Jayesh panel won.
Fifteen others were elected as executive committee members.