Indian Olympic Association (IOA) Constitutes Ad-Hoc Committee To Conduct Election In AOA

GUWAHATI: The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) has appointed a three-member ad-hoc committee to conduct election of the Assam Olympic Association (AOA). The committee will be chaired by Surinder Mohan Bali, CEO of the Handball Federation of India and it includes Mushtaque Ahmed, the secretary of the Bihar Olympic Association and Sunil Elangbam, the secretary of the Manipur Olympic Association, as members.

In a letter the president of the IOA Narinder Dhruv Batra informed the president and secretary of the AOA Tarun Gogoi and Rokybul Hussain respectively about the latest development.

It was also mentioned in the letter that the ad-hoc committee will take interim measures for overseeing governance and managing affairs and will conduct the election of the AOA within six months. Electoral College for conducting the election would be prepared in consultation with the concerned National Sports Federations and the information will also to be shared with IOA.

AOA is mired with controversy because of several reasons. The most crucial one is not holding the Annual General Meeting which was due nearly for a couple of years. In the letter Batra said, “The AOA is the affiliated unit of the IOA and so they are bound to abide by the rules and regulations of the organization. The election of all the state Olympic Unit is due when a four years term of the committee is concluded but it didn’t happen in the AOA. The matter was discussed in the Annual General Meeting of the IOA in December last year and the General Assembly has unanimously approved to form ad-hoc committee for the AOA.”

The letter also mentioned that the AOA although twice informed the IOA that they would organize the Annual General Meeting in February this year but practically it didn’t happen and because of it IOA has formed the ad-hoc committee to take the interim measures and conduct the election.

Meanwhile a section of executive members of the Assam Olympic Association today welcomed the decision of IOA. On condition of anonymity they said, “It’s very good step. The entire function of the Assam Olympic Association was stopped because of not holding Annual General Meeting. It is not important for us who will become the members of the new committee. We need new committee for the interest of sports in Assam.”

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