MCA ruling group to back Pawar in elections

MUMBAI: The ruling group of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) on Tuesday extended its support to Sharad Pawar at the October 18 biennial elections for which the Union Agriculture Minister is expected to file his presidential nomination.

There are indications that current MCA president and BCCI vice-president Ravi Savant will contest for vice-president’s post as the top job will be left for the Union Agricultural minister.

“Incumbent MCA president Ravi Savant, vice-president Vinod Deshpande, myself and other joint secretary PV Shetty, besides Ashish Shelar, a BJP MLC, are part of the Bal Mahadalkar group, which plans to contest for other office bearers’ posts,” joint secretary Nitin Dalal told PTI.

The panel also has some present managing committee members like Shrikant Tigdi, Arvind Kadam, Deepak Patil, Ganesh Iyer and Rajan Phaterphekar, who plan to file their nominations for retaining their berths.

Also, former Mumbai left-arm spinner Sanjay Patil, Deepak Murkar, Ramesh Vazge, Arman Malik, Navin Shetty and Shirish Mallapurkar, who are all part of the Mahadalkar group, are aspirants who wish to enter the managing committee, Dalal said.

Interestingly, MCA vice-president Vijay Patil has already formed a select panel called Cricket First, which has also decided to back Pawar, in case he files his presidential nomination.

Included in Patil’s panel are former test cricketers Lalchand Rajput and Abey Kuruvilla, besides former Mumbai medium pacer Atul Ranade, who is considered to be a very close friend of senior Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar and incumbent treasurer Mayank Khandwala.

Filing of nominations ends on October 11, while withdrawals of nominations could be made until October 13.