Finally, the under pressure Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) relented on Sunday and made a list of voting members public.
The decision was made keeping in mind the association’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) and elections, scheduled on September 24.
Till now, PCA had been reluctant to share the members list even with the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators (COA). But now they are planning to go ahead with the elections.
The association, which is being run by an ad-hoc committee, has listed 182 members of which only a handful are ex-cricketers.
“The nominations will be filed on September 23 and new office bearers will be elected on September 24. We have been following the Lodha committee recommendations in total and I don’t think there will be any hitch in the process,” said RP Singla, who is the convener of PCA’s ad-hoc committee.
The prominent members on the list include IAS officer DP Reddy, former PCA president and chairman IS Bindra and his son Amarinder Bindra, former general secretary MP Pandove and his son Kunal Pandove, former secretary GS Walia and RP Pandove, who is the brother of MP Pandove.
Interestingly, former IPL chairman Lalit Kumar Modi also features in the list of life members.
Out of the 182, only nine are former cricketers which includes MP Pandove, curator Daljit Singh, RP Singla, Rakesh Rathore, Rameshwar Dayal Singh, Akash Lal, Vinod Sharma and Balwant Singh.
“I feel cheated by the likes of IS Bindra and MP Pandove. I have served Punjab cricket for so long and have played at international level. But today the whole cricketing fraternity of the state will feel cheated. They have simply forgotten to add names of cricketing heroes,” said former international cricketer Bhupinder Singh Sr., who is the president of the rebel ex-players body Punjab Cricket Welfare Association (PCPA).
“In 1993, we won the Ranji Trophy and there is not even a single member from that squad. Due to their vested interests they have brought down the faith former cricketers had in this association,” Bhupinder added.
Other prominent cricketers missing from the list are Navjot Singh Sidhu, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, Harvinder Singh and Bishan Singh Bedi.
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