Manohar all set to be elected unopposed as BCCI president

Mumbai: Lawyer-turned-administrator Shashank Manohar is all set to be elected unopposed as BCCI President tomorrow, bringing in a new era in the cricket body that was not long ago hit hard by the IPL scandal which saw the end of strongman N Srinivasan's clout.

Manohar will take over the post at the Board's Special General meeeting here tomorrow as he was the only candidate left in the fray for the election whose deadline for nomination ended today.

The election was necessitated by the sudden demise of Jagmohan Dalmiya who had a short term of seven months after his election in March this year. Earlier he was made the interim President when Srinivasan "stepped aside" in the wake of revelations that his son-in-law was involved in betting during the 2013 IPL season.

All the six units of East Zone unanimously proposed Manohar's candidature for the president's post, reflecting former chief N Srinivasan's diminishing hold in Board's power politics.

With BCCI's Special General Meeting scheduled tomorrow, Manohar's annointment to the hot seat is just a mere formality after the scrutiny of the nomination forms showed that all the six East Zone units have separately signed as proposers.

A BCCI by-election needs only one proposer from the zone which is electing the president and Manohar got the nod from all the six associations. Manohar's was the lone nomination at the end of the 7 pm deadline.

Interestingly, one of the proposers for Manohar was late Jagmohan Dalmiya's son Avishek, who is representing his family club National Cricket Club (NCC) in the upcoming SGM.

Srinivasan will not be attending the meeting with Tamil Nadu Cricket Association being represented by P S Raman.

The others who also proposed Manohar's name are Sourav Ganguly from Bengal, Sourav Dasgupta from Tripura, Gautam Roy from Assam, Ashirbad Behera of Odisha and Sanjay Singh of Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA).

"All the six units of East Zone separately proposed Manohar's name to show that they are firmly backing his candidature," a representative from East said.