In a surprise development, UP Chess Sports Association’s president Sanjay Kapoor will be contesting for the post of president, All India Chess Federation (AICF) as part of secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan’s camp. Kapoor will be taking on the former president of AICF P.R.Venketrama Raja.
Till recently, the UP Chess Sports Association with two votes in the AICF election was considered to be part of Raja’s camp.
As a matter of fact, Kapoor had filed his nomination for the post of vice president as part of the Raja camp in the February 2020 elections which were later annulled by the Madras High Court.
The AICF is split into two factions — one headed by former Raja and the other by Chauhan.
Kapoor’s switching over to Chauhan’s camp and contesting against Raja is something like a surprise discovered to check for the opponent’s king in the game of chess.
“There is no split in the UP Chess Sports Association,” Kapoor told IANS clarifying that the two votes will be for Chauhan camp as he declined to comment on the reasons for switching camps.
“The new development happened during the last two days. We are hoping for four more state associations to extend support to Chauhan,” Sanjay Chadha, counsel for Chauhan told IANS.
As per the poll schedule announced earlier by the Election Officer K.Kannan — a retired Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court — scrutiny of the nominations will be done on Saturday through video conferencing and the final list of contesting candidates will be announced that evening.
“We will raise our objections on the electoral college and other matters on Saturday,” Chadha said.
Regardless of losing UP Chess Sports Association’s support, the Raja camp is confident of winning the polls.
“Perhaps Kapoor wanted to contest for a bigger post as we had offered to contest for the post of vice president,” Vijay Deshpande, secretary, All Marathi Chess Association and part of Raja camp, told IANS.
According to Deshpande, 18 state chess associations — each state chess association has two votes — are in support of Raja and the remaining 14 state associations are supporting Chauhan.
As per the nominations filed, persons from 28 state associations — 14 each supporting the two factions — are contesting in the AICF polls for various posts.
There are 32 state chess associations in the electoral college with two votes each. Both the factions are hopeful of getting the support of the remaining four state associations.
