No Baroda Cricket Association polls as 4 candidates withdraw forms on last day

VADODARA: With four candidates who had filed nominations for the apex council and two different sub-committees of the Baroda Cricket Association (BCA) withdrawing their forms from fray, it has become evident that no polls will be held for the prestigious cricketing body this term.
A formal declaration regarding this will, however, be made later.
Saturday was the last day for withdrawal of nominations for the BCA elections. With the five posts of office bearers having as many candidates on the last day of filing nominations, Pranav Amin remained the only candidate for the president’s post.
The other office bearers in waiting include Ajit Lele as the general secretary, Sheetal Mehta as treasurer, Anant Indulkar as vice president and Akin Shah as the joint secretary.
Six forms were submitted for the polls for the five seats of the apex council and with one candidate withdrawing, the candidates here too will be declared uncontested. These include Akshat Patel, Vipul Ghiya, Chandrakant Sheth, Kalyan Haribhakti and Rashmi Shah.
Eleven nominations were filed for the seven seats of the ground and infrastructure committee.
With four candidates deciding against contesting, all members in this committee will also be elected uncontested. With one candidate who had filed nomination for the finance committee also withdrawing nomination, the remaining seven are set to win uncontested.
Like the office bearers and the apex council, the press and publicity committee also had seven candidates in fray for an equal number of posts. They will be elected uncontested. Former MP Satyajitsinh Gaekwad is likely to continue as the chairman of this committee. The other members of the committee will be former Vadodara Municipal Corporation opposition leader Chirag Zaveri, Vipul Chawda, Kirankumar Dave, Tarak Patel and Nilan Nayakwade.
The polls have been largely avoided as the Royal Group led by scion of the royal Gaekwad family Samarjisinh Gaekwad and Revival Group led by Amin joining hands.
While some prominent members were looking to contest the polls, they decided against it.
At the other end, the eligibility of Amin and Lele to contest the polls has been challenged in the Gujarat high court. The next date for hearing of the petition has been fixed on March 2.