DDCA honeymoon ends as Rajat Sharma suspends mentor Vinod Tihara

With just three days left for the domestic cricket season to start, the Delhi & District Cricket Association finds itself fighting an internal war as president Rajat Sharma suspended secretary Vinod Tihara after the executive committee meeting held here on Tuesday.

The situation has deteriorated to such an extent that even Delhi captain Gautam Gambhir's efforts to broker peace between the two warring parties failed to yield any results during the EC meeting.

The tug of war between Sharma and Tihara began after the latter, along with secretary cricket Sanjay Bhardwaj, put on hold all the major decisions and appointments (chief executive officer, chief financial officer, chief operating officer and general manager) made without keeping them in loop as per the recommendations of the Supreme Court-appointed Justice Lodha Committee.

Tihara group has raised strong objections about the manner in which Sharma, owner of a TV news channel, appointed his own cricket guest and former India opener Virender Sehwag as member of the Cricket Improvement Committee (CIC), apart from several other charges where selectors and other major DDCA appointments were made without following the proper procedure.

DNA has reliably learnt that though the Sharma group managed to get signatures of 10 EC members out of the total strength of 13, Tihara still enjoys the backing of majority of DDCA members.

Tihara group has already managed to get signatures of more than 500 members required to call the Special General Body Meeting to confront Sharma and company.

Sharma got into the DDCA in July this year only with the backing of Tihara group. With Supreme Court deciding on BCCI, the Committee of Administrators (COA) has given its view of conducting fresh elections in all the cricket bodies across India.

"We're ready to hold fresh elections as per SC orders. The majority is with us in DDCA and Sharma, who is being backed by the same corrupt former secretary, who was caught transferring Rs 1.55 crore into his own account, will face the ire of members," Tihara replied to his suspension.

Sharma has flouted several Justice Lodha recommendations while appointing the selection panels in recent days.

Director Cricket Bhardwaj has submitted a written complaint to the ombudsman/ethics officer justice (retd) Badar Durrez Ahmed alleging Sehwag's conflict of interest as cricket expert in Sharma's news channel apart from running multiple cricket academies and being a part of the Indian Premier League team Kings XI Punjab.

Bhardwaj has stated that the appointments of other CIC members Aakash Chopra and Rahul Sanghvi, former cricketers, violate the conflict of interest norms.

Chopra runs cricket academies, while Sanghvi is engaged with Mumbai Indians (team manager). He also questioned the appointment of former Delhi all-rounder Mayank Tehlan, who is first cousin of Sehwag, into the junior selection committee.