Which hockey body will have voting rights in IOA elections?

V Narayan Swamy & Biswajyoti Brahma, TNN | Oct 23, 2012, 02.14AM IST

Which hockey body will have voting rights in IOA elections?
According to senior IHF officials, as per the high court orders, IHF is the game’s governing body in India at least till March 2013. IHF was disbanded and replaced with HI by the IOA in 2008.

NEW DELHI/BANGALORE: The ongoing tussle between the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) and Hockey India (HI) is likely to find a new turf now – the upcoming Indian Olympic Association (IOA) elections.

Both parties are keen to vote during the elections, which will be hotly contested for the first time in 16 years.

According to senior IHF officials, as per the high court orders, IHF is the game’s governing body in India at least till March 2013. IHF was disbanded and replaced with HI by the IOA in 2008.

HI has the backing of the game’s world body ( FIH), which IOA’s constitution considers as the eligibility. With the court later reinstating IHF, the game of hockey is now being run by two federations.

In such a scenario, the big question is who is eligible to vote in the November 25 elections. As per the IOA constitution, a national federation is entitled to three votes.

Interestingly, both the warring parties attended IOA’s special general body meeting held in the Capital on October 18.

IHF was represented by its secretary general Ashok Mathur, while Narinder Batra represented HI.

Now, if both parties decide to field their members in the elections, IOA has a huge problem at hand.

“The matter is subjudice. It would be improper for us to say at the moment which side is eligible to cast the votes,” a senior IOA official told TOI.

Sources in the know of developments said that in all probability the returning officer of the IOA polls would take the final call.

“It seems unlikely that the returning officer will consider votes from both sides as valid. He will have to give the right to only one party,” sources said.