For the last couple of years, Diana Edulji, a member of Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators, has been at loggerheads with its chairman Vinod Rai. The former Indian women’s team captain has once again hit out at her colleagues saying the CoA has neither been open nor transparent in their decision making process.
The current stand-off between Edulji and the other CoA members has been over the denial of voting rights to three government organisations – Railways, Services and Association of Universities – for failing to form a Player’s Association and some of the member units being disqualified for non-compliance of the constitution.
“We are not very open or transparent,” she was quoted as saying by The Indian Express. “We are seen as favouring certain states and [biased against] certain other states. That is not the idea of CoA, even today Justice Lodha said too much dilution [of his recommendations]. Doesn’t it send wrong signals? We have done all the hard work in the last three years. Why are we spoiling it in the end? We are not being fair.”
Insisting that no government organisation can have a Players’ Association, Edulji claimed that most of her points and suggestions were always shot down.
“Maybe they [CoA members] think of me as too junior a person who doesn’t know much about cricket administration, but my views are always in the minority,” she said. “Now, since there are three members in the CoA, 2-1, 2-1, 2-1 is the norm.”
The 63-year-old also alleged that the CoA was selective in dealing with case of non-compliance within the state units and that is not good for CoA’s image.
“The same yardstick should be used for everybody. You can’t have different yardsticks for different states,” she said. “The optics are going wrong. The perception of people is going wrong. Perception is very important.”