The Indian Olympic Association’s executive council meeting in New Delhi on Thursday is expected to be a heated affair with its members adding contentious items on the agenda, including the alleged “threatening letters” issued by president PT Usha to them. The meeting will take place in the backdrop of growing tensions between Usha and IOA treasurer Sahdev Yadav. On Tuesday, Yadav threatened legal action against Usha for “defaming” his image after she issued a show cause notice to him on the basis of a complaint challenging his eligibility to hold the post.
The 14 agenda points added by the executive council cover a discussion on “illegal and threatening letters issued by the President to the members of the Executive Committee from time to time”.
As per two more items concerning the president, the council will “discuss and deliberate upon the scope of powers of the president under the IOA Constitution and will decide on the need for reporting the conduct of the president to the IOA Ethics Commission”.
The official communication on the meeting was jointly issued by 12 council members, including senior vice president Ajay Patel, vice-president Rajalaxmi Singh Deo, vice-president and former Olympic medallist Gagan Narang, member and former wrester Yogeshwar Dutt among others.
The members who did not sign the document included boxer M C Mary Kom and table tennis player A Sharath Kamal, who are on the IOA athletes commission.
Issues related to the recent Paris Olympics will also be a substantial part of the meeting.
They include the sponsorship details of the Olympics, “additional expenditure” incurred in Paris covering the room upgrade expense of president at alleged cost to the IOA and “bring to knowledge the list of accreditation cards issued to various people at Paris Olympics including various Passes and Invites”.
Another discussion will pertain to the process followed for selecting the Sportsperson of Outstanding Merit (SOM) in November 2022 and their participation in the election of the IOA for elected posts.
The athletes commission had picked eight SOMs back then including Usha, Yogeshwar Dutt, MM Somaya (hockey), Rohit Rajpal (tennis), Akhil Kumar (boxing), Shuma Sirur (shooting), Aparna Popat (badminton) and Dola Banerjee (archery).
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