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The merger plan of India’s two irresponsible Hockey Governing Bodies –Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) and Hockey India (HI) looks to be a drama stage over by people with vested interest. New conditions and twist pops up every second day with no concrete solution coming out.
A statement made by Indian Hockey federation President RK Shetty clearly voiced that the tussle and fight between the two warring bodies is just for the lust of power. Speaking to the Media on the sidelines of the briefing by Nimbus Communications regarding staging World Series Hockey, Shetty put’s all the blame on Hockey India for not accepting their proposal.
“There are just 36 months remaining for the elections (to the HI executive committee) but they (HI) are not accepting the proposal to rotate the secretary’s post.”
Shetty said that the real issues were two: cyclical control of the hockey body, and control of the hockey state federations.
“We have agreed to the name ‘Hockey India’ for the merged body”, said Shetty whose comment comes after it has been agreed upon in the last meeting that the name of the merged body would be change to Bharat Hockey.
He added that the recognition of state association under IHF is another area of contention though he refuses to divulge the details. Ministry has proposed to set up a committee after the merger to sort out the issues of control of the state federations.
In the last one year, HI had not allowed the states where IHF has the say to take part in their election, as a win from those states could tilt the balance of power within HI to IHF. There has been several court case filed by the state federations against HI for not allowing them to participate in the election.
However, according to legal experts who spoke to a leading sports portal, the rotational Secretary policy demanded by IHF could go against the basic tenet of electoral practices. What IHF is demanding is two factions within a single body, which means the ‘united and merged body’ would still be in loggerheads.
One top legal expert said that it is untenable in law to have a united body where elections are held on the basis not of free candidature, but of nomination from each of the camps for the post of secretary. “It does not work in an NGO under the Societies Registration Act, and can easily be successfully challenged in court,” said the legal expert.
