Pti

Chennai: Veteran cricket administrator Jagmohan Dalmiya today returned as the BCCI president after being unanimously elected at the Board's annual general meeting but the N Srinivasan camp suffered a setback when rival faction's Anurag Thakur edged out Sanjay Patel for the Secretary's position here.

Thakur's slender one-vote victory over Patel provided the only moment of triumph for the anti-N Srinivasan camp at the elections which were swept by the ruling group loyalists at the much-postponed AGM. Srinivasan himself could not contest for the President's post owing to a Supreme Court directive.

Jharkhand Cricket Association's Amitabha Choudhary was elected the Joint Secretary beating Goa's Chetan Desai, belonging to the anti-Srinivasan faction, while Haryana's Anirudh Choudhary won the treasurer's position by defeating Rajiv Shukla 16-13.

While three vice-Presidents were elected unopposed, the two other positions also went to the Srinivasan faction with T C Mathew (Kerala, west zone) and C K Khanna (Delhi, central zone) winning the polls. Khanna defeated the influential Jyotiraditya Scindia, while Mathew edged past Ravi Sawant.

The three who were elected unopposed are Andhra's G Ganga Raju (south zone), Assam's Goutam Roy (east) with M L Nehru of Jammu and Kashmir representing the north zone.

The road for Dalmiya was cleared after former President and NCP leader Sharad Pawar failed to get a proposer from east zone, prompting the Maratha strongman to pull out of the race.

BJP leader Thakur, it is learnt, won by just one vote over Srinivasan loyalist Patel, a scenario unlikely to have emerged had there not been cross-voting during the election process.

It is learnt that two members did not vote at all, while a third who owes allegiance to a leading political party decided to vote for Thakur.

In the case of Joint Secretary's position, both Desai and Choudhary garnered 15 votes each but Shivlal Yadav, who chaired the meeting, tilted the scales in Choudhary's favour with his casting vote.

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