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Kalyan Chaubey, the BJP leader from West Bengal and Congress leader N.A. Haris of Karnataka State Football Association have joined hands to run the All-India Football Federation (AIFF). While Choubey will take the role of the board’s President, Haris will serve as the vice-president of the AIFF. Notably, Choubey is the unanimous choice of the 36 state football federations for the post of president.
Meanwhile, Kipa Ajay of the Arunachal Football Association and Delhi Football's president Saji Prabhakaran will be taking up the roles of treasurer and General Secretary respectively.
As per a report in the IANS, both Kalyan Chaubey and N.A. Haris will be elected unanimously. "The decision has been taken in a Delhi hotel, on yesterday evening that the State Associations will nominate the candidates unanimously and elect them without contest," IANS quoted its source saying.
The state associations had called for a press conference on Wednesday but it was postponed due to unavoidable reasons. The same IANS report claimed that the conference was postponed due to disagreement on the names of the candidates. However, it’s resolved now and BJP and Congress have agreed to run the football board together.
The report also revealed the expected names of the 14 executive committee members.
“According to the sources, the 14 executive committee members will be: Avijit Paul -Orissa, Syed Imtiaz Husainv-Bihar, Menla Ethenpa - Sikkim, Mohan Lal - Chattisgarh, Lalnghinglova Hmar - Mizoram, K Neibou Sekhose - Nagaland, Deepak Sharma -Himachal Pradesh, Arif Ali - Uttarakhand , Vijay Bali - Punjab, Anilkumar P -Kerala, G.P.Palguna - Telengana, Dilip Singh Shekhawat - Rajasthan, Maloji Raje Chhatrapati - The Western India Football Association (Maharashtra), Valanka Natasha Alemao- Goa,” IANS wrote.
After the SC order, the returning officer Umesh Sharma stated that the election will be held on September 2 at the AIFF headquarter in Delhi and the results could be announced either on September 2 or 3.
The nominations for the posts can be filed between August 25 to 27 while the scrutiny will be done on August 28, the returning officer said. The candidates will have a chance to withdraw the nomination on August 29 while the returning officer shall prepare the final list of contesting candidates and put it on the AIFF website on August 30.