Election officer acted in a biased manner: Gokhale

While alleging that the election officer acted in a biased manner during Maharashtra Olympics Association (MOA) election process, former Maharashtra State Basketball Association (MSBA) vice-president and Shiv Chhatrapati awardee Shatrughna Gokhale said MOA president Ajit Pawar should intervene.

The MOA elections are slated to be held on September 24. Barring treasurer all other officials were elected unanimously. While addressing media persons on Monday Gokhale said although MSBA is suspended by the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) and not a registered association eithter under the Societies Registration Act of Maharashtra PublicTrust Act, the MOA gave voting rights to MSBA. Top top all this Govind Muttukumar while representing MSBA has been elected as executive committee member unopposed.

Gokhale has alleged that even after producing all the required documents to MOA, no necessary action was taken. " We were hoping that being a retired judge himself, the election officer SN Sardesai will act according to the constitution of MOA. But it seems that he acted in a biased manner and took one-sided decision.

Gokhale further said the election officer did not take cognizance of MOA constitution which says to become a member of MOA the association must be registered eighter under Societies Registration Act of under Public Trust Act.

" On September 18, we again requested election officer that it is within your jurisdiction to verity and check the authenticity of the voters of the candidates and if found not legal you should not allow that voter or candidate to take part in the election.s But even after all efforts to stop illegality being done in the MOA elections, the election officer appointed by MOA itself overlooked the facts and didn't respond to out objections".

Gokhale said , " Allowing an unregistered association to take part in the elections is a broad daylight murder of democracy. We are requesting Ajit Pawar who has been elected as MOA president unanimously to look into the matter. We know Pawar is a very strict administrator and never allows illegality to be done by anybody. Our last hope lies with Ajit Pawar and we are sure he will take the right decision", said Gokhale.

Senior basketball official Dr Dhananjay Welukar and secretary of Amravati District Basketball Association Jayant Deshmukh also attended the press conference.