Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Union Sports Ministry has proposed a set of minimum, critical guidelines for conducting the elections to Hockey India (HI).

The proposals were made to the International Hockey Federation (FIH) Vice President, Antonio Von Ondarza, in a letter sent by the ministry on Friday. Copies of the letter were also sent to Hockey India and the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), among others.

In reply to a letter he had written to the ministry on Thursday, the Government has informed Mr. Ondarza that it “would like to see” certain minimum principles being laid down before the elections were held especially since election by-laws were yet to be finalised.

The proposals

Among the points suggested were: Composition of the electoral college must be finalised immediately and not later than January 15;

An independent Returning Officer must be appointed by the HI president immediately; the Returning Officer should in no way be connected with HI or IOA and should preferably be a retired High Court/District Court judge; the election notice calling for nominations must be issued by the Returning Officer and not by an HI office-bearer; this is absolutely essential since the present body is just an interim body which cannot exercise the powers of a duly-elected body;

Once the election process is set in motion, the present office-bearers of HI should be “at arms length distance from the election process and should have no role in the conduct of the elections”;

The same would apply to the IOA because the foundation board of HI was constituted by the IOA by “invoking its extraordinary powers”;

The Government observer for elections would also follow the same principle and only observe the conduct of the elections;

There should be a clear schedule marking each stage of the election, viz. last date of receipt of nominations, scrutiny of nominations, publication of list of valid nominations, withdrawal of nominations, publication of final list of valid nominations and conduct of elections.

The Government has proposed a detailed schedule to be followed for different stages of the election process, stating that this was essential to ensure fair and transparent elections.

It has also said that elections to all posts of office-bearers must be held simultaneously.