TWO ARCHERY PRESIDENTS ELECTED

Kolkata: Defying World Archery’s suspension threats, the two factions of Archery Association of India Sunday unanimously elected two presidents — union minister Arjun Munda and BVP Rao — in separate elections in New Delhi and Chandigarh respectively. Both the warring factions, who claimed to have followed the constitution and abided by the National Sports Code, will submit their respective compliance reports within six weeks to the Delhi High Court. It, however, remains to be seen which of the two elections is declared constitutional. After issuing a suspension threat, the World Archery had tried to have an unified election but all the talks to bring the two factions together failed. A WA official said the world body will take a call on whether the AAI is to be suspended or not within “a week’s time”. Till then, the Indian archers who are competing at the World Championships in Netherlands beginning Tuesday will be able to represent the country. “World Archery will receive the reports from both meetings, evaluate and then the executive board will decide next steps. It’s likely to take one week,” a WA official said. “The team manager’s meeting (for the World Championships) was over today, which means ‘India’ are in the competition,” the official added. In New Delhi, Justice (retired) Kailash Gambhir declared Munda elected as president. Virender Sachdeva was made Secretary General.