Sourav Ganguly might be ineligible for BCCI's top role

The apex Indian court had a massive crackdown at the functioning of the most power cricket board in the world, the BCCI. Supreme Court gave a huge setback to the BCCI by sacking its president Anurag Thakur and secretary Ajay Shirke. A show cause notice subsequently issued of perjury and contempt of court. Both Thakur and Shirke will now get time until January 19 to reply to the Supreme Court. Soon after the sacking, the next big question that came to the fore was to get the ideal replacements for the top two roles.

The Jharkhand Cricket Association (JCA) chief Amitabh Chaudhary, the current Joint Secretary, will take the position of Ajay Shirke. For the top post of the BCCI president, several names came up with the name of former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly being the most favored one. January 19 is the deadline that has been set for the senior advocates Gopal Subramanian and Anil Divan to decide on a name that would replace Anurag Thakur as the BCCI President.

As the time keeps ticking, the names from the race are getting omitted. A set of guidelines and qualifications are put down by the Lodha committee that the new president elect will have to comply with. Along with Sourav Ganguly, the five vice-presidents of the BCCI’s zonal associations were the top contenders for the post. The vice-president of North Zone, Mr. ML Nehru, was ruled out due to his ineligibility as per the court guidelines.

Gautam Roy, the vice president of East Zone has been in the office for over 10 years and hence as per new rules, he has to vacate his office and serve the ‘cooling’ period. The same is applicable for G Gangaraju, the vice-president of the South Zone. CK Khanna, the Central Zone vice-president is under the scrutiny for his “pernicious influence” as per the reports submitted by Justice Mudgal.

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So the clear option becomes the name of Sourav Ganguly. However, as per the most recent news in Zee News, Ganguly might also be ineligible for the post since he has been in the office of Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) for 3 years now. Hence, the clarity over his selection also remains under dark clouds.