Mumbai: Former India captain Sourav Ganguly and ex-India off-spinner Harbhajan Singh will attend the upcoming BCCI Annual General Meeting and the elections of the cricket body on September 28. Ganguly’s name has been nominated by the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB), while Harbhajan will represent the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) in the AGM. Both Ganguly and Harbhajan’s names were mentioned in the ‘Draft Electoral roll’ which was put up by BCCI‘s Election Officer AK Joti post 6pm on Saturday. The deadline for members to file applications to nominate their representatives was September 12.It will be interesting to see if Ganguly and/or Harbhajan are elected for an office-brearers’ post in the BCCI. Ganguly was the BCCI’s president from 2019 to 2022. The BCCI will conduct a fresh election for all its office-bearers’ posts, the Apex Council and the IPL Governing Council.The main agenda point of the AGM is, of course, the election of all the five office-bearers of the BCCI: President, Vice-President, Secretary, Joint Secretary and Treasurer. The BCCI will also conduct the election and induction of one representative of the General Body in the Apex Council of the BCCI and two representatives of the General Body in the Governing Council of the IPL.Post Ganguly, since October 2022, 1983 World Cup winner Roger Binny held the post of the BCCI president till he turned 70 on July 19 this year. Harbhajan, a member of the Rajya Sabha and affiliated with the Aam Aadmi Party, was appointed as advisor to the PCA earlier. This will be the first time that he will represent his parent state association in the BCCI. The off-spinner played 103 Test matches for India, taking 417 wickets at 32.46. He also played 236 ODIs, in which he took 269 wickets at 33.35 and was part of the World Cup-winning squad in 2011.The election officer has decided that the window to file a nomination application is from September 20 to 21. The candidates can withdraw their names by September 23, while the election will be held on the 28th of this month.Current BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia will represent the Assam Cricket Association, while ex-BCCI treasurer Anirudh Chaudhary will represent the Haryana Cricket Association. The Karnataka State Cricket Association has nominated former India left-arm spinner Raghuram Bhatt as their representative, while the Mumbai Cricket Association has nominated its vice-president Sanjay Naik.
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The Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA) will be represented by Rohan Jaitley, the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association has nominated former IPL chairman Arun Dhumal, and current BCCI vice-president Rajeev Shukla will be the representative from Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association. Jaydev Shah has been nominated by the Saurashtra Cricket Association, and Pranav Amin will represent Baroda. Tamil Nadu has nominated its secretary, RI Palani.
