Sandeep Patil cleared to contest MCA election

Sandeep Patil, the former World Cup winner and India head coach, has been cleared to contest for the post of president in the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) election, to be held on October 14.

Patil will be one of the four eligible candidates whose forms were accepted by the electoral officer J.S. Saharia after scrutinising the documents. The other three in the fray are Ashish Shelar, Amol Kale and incumbent secretary Sanjay Naik.

On Tuesday, Naik objected to Patil’s candidature on the basis of his conflict-of-interest complaint against the cricketer. Naik had cited Patil’s close relation with Salil Ankola (Patil’s son Chirag has married Ankola’s daughter Sana) is the chairman of Mumbai’s senior men’s selection committee.

Late on Tuesday evening, Saharia cleared Patil’s candidature. With Shelar on Tuesday having been confirmed as the treasurer-in-waiting of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Patil, the leader of the challenger Mumbai Cricket Group, is likely to be involved in a one-on-one contest against Kale, a close aide of deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Should Kale decide to vie for the president’s post, Navin Shetty of the Mumbai Cricket Group will be elected unopposed as vice-president.

Sanjay Naik, a close associate of Shelar who was declined nomination by the Shelar-Pawar Group, has filed applications for the president’s and secretary’s posts. It will be interesting to see the choice he makes to contest.

Besides Naik, eight other candidates – including the key challenger Ajinkya Naik – have filed nominations for the secretary’s post. The joint secretary’s post has six valid candidates, while the treasurer’s post has 10 valid nominations, including that of incumbent Jagdish Achrekar.

For the nine apex council member posts, a whopping 34 candidates have submitted nomination forms.

The last date of withdrawals is Friday.