Usha makes comeback into IOA elections through ice hockey

In a fresh twist to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) election president PT Usha, who lost the polls of Sportsperson of Outstanding Merit (SOM) earlier this week, was nominated by the Ice Hockey Association of India (IHAI) as one of its representatives for the elective general meeting of the IOA.

Usha is part of the 70-member provisional electoral college published by returning officer Sanjay Kumar Srivastava on Thursday. Members of the electoral college can cast vote and run for elections to the IOA executive council to be held on December 5. The other IHAI representative is general secretary Harjinder Singh.

All 30 eligible National Sports Federations (NSF) have sent names of one male and one female representative for the IOA elections. Athletics Federation of India has nominated Adille Sumariwalla, who withdrew from the SOM elections.

"The representatives nominated by each unit (NSF) must be members of such units," as per clause 10.4 of the IOA constitution. It remains to be seen whether there will be any objections to Usha's nomination. She became IOA president through SOM route in 2022.

IHAI itself has been going through internal governance turmoil. On Thursday, IHAI vice-president Ajit Kakkar wrote to IOA to debar IHAI from participating in the elections. It also sought verification of IHAI elections held on August 2, and recognise a second governing body headed by Kunzang Namgail as sole authority of the federation.

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The final electoral roll will be published on Sunday after scrutiny, verification and disposal of objections. Filing of nominations for executive council elections will be from Nov 22-24.

Usha lost a bitter SOM election after finishing fifth behind Anju Bobby George, Dola Banerjee Rani Rampal and Saina Nehwal. Four female and four male SOMs were elected to the IOA general assembly.

Questions have been raised over the conduct of SOM elections. Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra made public a letter he had written to electoral officer on Oct 31 raising concerns over apparent inconsistency between the IOA constitution (Article 3.7) and the rules followed during the recently concluded SOM elections. Though Bindra voted in the SOM elections on Monday, he did not contest. Bindra received a response but said his specific questions remained unanswered.

"It is important that our constitutional provisions, electoral rules and administrative procedures are clearly aligned and communicated leaving little room as possible for ambiguity," Bindra had written on Oct 31.