Former IHF Official Re-constitutes His TNHA In ‘Secret’ Meeting

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu Hockey Association imbroglio took a new turn on Saturday with K Jothikumaran reconstituting the body at a faraway corner near Tiruchy at Ariyalur on Friday night even as members of the association cried foul that the former IHF secretary’s action was improper and not constitutional. Jothikumaran’s attempt remain in his post in TNHA as secretary comes in the wake of a crucial Tamil Nadu Olympic Association meeting on July 12 to decide the claims of a rival group which elected its own own office-bearers in Madurai last month.

Jothikumaran’s press release on Saturday mentioned an emergent executive meeting of TNHA was held on July 4 under the chairmanship of ‘Olympian V Baskaran,’ wherein 16 affiliated district associations participated and two districts sent their leave of absence. The meeting, according to Jothikumaran, unanimously decided that a set of officebearers will look after the hockey affairs till the general body meeting to be held before October 2008.

“We were not even informed that the executive committee meeting was being held in Ariyalur,”’ revealed Chelladurai Abdulla, the treasurer in Jothikumaran’s old committee and secretary of the new association formed in Madurai last month. “Jothi carefully avoided sending letters to 19 ofcour members and invited only his supporters. And he chose Ariyalur as the venue because the district secretary there (Bharathidasan) is his supporter. Bharatidasan’s daughter’s wedding took place at Tiruchi on July 4 and Jothi planned his meeting at Ariyalur, some 70 kms away because he could not have held it anywhere else,” explained Abdulla.

But when contacted Jothikumaran told Times of India that he had sent letters to all the office-bearers including the treasurer of TNHA (Chelladurai Abdulla). “But we did not get any response from him. He did not attend the meeting and that was why we replaced him (with M Sampath),”’ explained Jothikumaran.

“This is ridiculous. How can you change office-bearers in an executive meeting,”’ fumed Abdulla. “This should be done in the general body meeting. But then the general body meeting has not been held since 1992,” he added.

Jothikumaran also set up a committee to meet the TNOA officials. V Baskaran, V Kuppuswamy, Jabarathnam, Venkatachalam, Udayakumar and Pandarinathan will meet the TNOA officials, said the release by Jothikumaran. The former IHF secretary said the meeting was necessitated by many vacancies. “We had vacancies in the vice-presidents’ posts as two of them died and the umpires committee was also not in place after Rajasekharan’s death,” explained Jothikumaran. “V Baskaran will lead a delegation to TNOA members before July 12 to appraise them of our office affairs,” added Jothikumaran.

All these incidents come just before the TNOA meeting on July 12 to solve the muddle in Tamil Nadu hock ey and basketball. One of the members of the committee appointed by TNOA to look into the affair, CR Visswanathan, said he would not be able to comment on the issue because the three-member committee (Chopra, Walter Devaram and himself) has to verify the records in the TNOA before deciding anything. “The group of 20 district secretaries met me a few days back and told us about their claims. There are two versions and we will know once we check the TNOA records. They must be certainly having records,” said Visswanathan.