Cricket club of India members to meet next best to decide fate of the controversial proxy voting system
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In existence for decades, the system of voting by proxy has been a key determining factor in the election of the Club's president and committee members, despite opposition from founding stalwarts like the late legend AFST Taleyarkhan and other distinguished members.
Reflecting the changing temper of the times and culture of the club and its membership, a substantial body of opinion in the club's executive Committee and its general body now feels the club's recent unsavoury infighting has signalled time for a change in its Memorandum of Articles and Articles of Association.
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A view of the Cricket Club of India pavilion. PIC/GETTY IMAGES |
The Bombay Gymkhana did away with the proxy system, considered pernicious and out of sync with the times, some 30 years ago and the elitist Willingdon Sports Club has retained the system only for annual elections of its 275-odd life members.
The charter of the CCI provides for a two-thirds majority of its members present and voting at an EGM for any amendment to its articles, a majority president Badal Mittal is confident of mustering at Monday's meeting.
It's time
"We have to move with the times," Mittal says. "The time has come for a change since the proxy system perpetuates people in office. It is the root of many evils."
Arvind Apte (he played one Test against England at Leeds in 1959 and has a first-class cricket aggregate of 2782 runs from 58 matches for an average of 33.51), a long-time member of the club, feels the proxy system is a "double-edged weapon"
He attributes the relocation of international cricket away from the world-famous Brabourne Stadium in 1971 to the proxy system at which then president Vijay Merchant sought resort to proxies.
Arvind Apte says a "pathetically" small number of members (who, he says, had very little "awareness") were present at the momentous EGM at which the thorny issue of allocation of tickets to the then Bombay Cricket Association was decided.
Apte is of the opinion that, whereas, on one hand, the proxy system makes for stability "provided the majority of committee members are committed individuals", on the other, doing away with proxies will improve attendance at the club's AGM and make the club's functioning more democratic in a system that perpetuates continuation of office-bearers almost ad infinitum.
Younger brother of former Test opening batsman and ex CCI president Madhav Apte, Arvind will turn 75 tomorrow and follows the sun between London and Pune. A member of MCC at Lord's, the younger Apte feels the system followed by MCC should be emulated by the CCI.
Debatable
Under this system, members who cannot cast their ballots at the AGM can send in their votes by post to a designated firm of solicitors.
Former Test cricketer Farokh Engineer, an honorary life member of the CCI and MCC, feels it is debatable if members who live outside Mumbai (many live abroad) are really abreast of happenings to be able to give their proxies responsibly and intelligently.
He says these members use their proxy to help friends or people who approach them, irrespective of whether the candidate is deserving or not.
Engineer, currently in residence at the CCI, endorses Arvind Apte's suggestion as regards postal ballot.
Businessman Ranjan Sanghi, a former Bombay Gymkhana president and current president of the Squash Racquets Association of Maharashtra (SRAM), whose family has enjoyed membership benefits of the CCI, Willingdon and Bombay Gym for almost six decades, is all for doing away with the proxy system.
Chamchagiri
"In many, if not most, cases members give proxies to their friends for election candidates who they have never met or know nothing about," Sanghi says.
"Not only does the system enable the president to hold on to office only on the basis of his capacity to collect proxies, irrespective of merit, it also enables him to get his undeserving chamchas elected to be his henchmen at committee meetings" Monday's meeting will be an acid test of the level-headedness of members of the club, as also their ability to move with the times.
May Wisdom be their guiding star.
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