The Hindu : Sport / Badminton : Strife in the TNBA ranks

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 23, 2005

Sport

Sport - Badminton

Strife in the TNBA ranks

By S.R. Suryanarayanan

CHENNAI, FEB. 22. Tamil Nadu has never been a force in badminton. And so when the state won the boys' section in the south zone championship for the first time last year there was understandable elation. Now two boys — Vijay Anand and Sarath Chandran — are in the Indian team on tour to Europe.

The city also plays host to one national event — the Krishna Khaitan memorial junior national ranking tournament. This tournament, held sometime in June, usually comes pior to an important international engagement and thus proves handy for the cream of the junior talent in the country to gain some match practice.

Such being the case, the recent developments in the Tamil Nadu Badminton Association have caused concern for the followers about the current activities in the state but also over the future. Suffice to state, the TNBA is now a house divided. On the one side is the President K. Malaisamy, a former bureucrant and a sitting Rajya Sabha MP, making his foray into the area of sports for the first time. On the other side is the long serving Secretary, Ashok Bajaj, a former state player and a businessman. The two have not been seeing eye-to-eye and the net result is a stalemate that threatens to jeopardise the administration of the sport in the state.

What pushed matters to this pass was the general meeting of December 26 in Coimbatore, convened by Mr. Malaisamy at short notice because, according to people close to him, some matters had to be debated urgently. Mr. Bajaj had expressed his inability to attend because of prior commitments. A few close to him too followed suit. At the meeting, which Mr. Bajaj claims was not called as per the constitutional requirements (21 days notice), did not have proper representation from district units and lacked quorum, it was decided among other things to elect a new secretary (in place of Mr. Bajaj) and a new treasurer (in place of Ajit Kumbat).

Mr. Bajaj, who is one of the vice presidents of the Badminton Association of India (BAI), informed the Federation about the developments, in particular the "unconstitutional nature" of the meeting at Coimbatore.

The BAI took stock of the situation and its President, V.K. Verma is believed to have written to Mr. Malaisamy stating that the Coimbatore meeting was invalid and that status quo would remain until the BAI executive deliberates on the matter, sometime next month.

In the meantime, Mr. Malaisamy has offered to have the meeting conducted again with an observer from the BAI. "I am yet to hear on this from the BAI", he told The Hindu. "What I wish to emphasise is that nearly 90 per cent of the district units are crying for a change of Secretary and I am certain that another general body meeting will have the same outcome as at Coimbatore."

or an Association which had to surrender a one-acre piece of land, alloted to it in the city by the state government, because of failure to come up with a project report, an uncertain phase lies ahed if the stalemate is not resolved.

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