NEW DELHI (AP) — A crucial meeting on India’s bid to return to the Olympic fold was thrown into doubt Thursday when a senior Indian Olympic Association official objected to the IOC inviting a rival faction to the talks.
IOA acting president Vijay Kumar Malhotra, who was in charge of consulting with the government over a sports code, said he would not attend next Wednesday’s scheduled meeting in Switzerland.
“As the IOC has changed the script for the Lausanne meeting, I want to inform you that I will not be attending the meeting and also hereby withdraw the letter I sent to you on May 3, 2013 naming my delegation,” Malhotra said in a letter to IOC President Jacques Rogge and distributed to the media.
India was suspended by the IOC in December after the IOA held its elections in line with a government sports code and not in accordance with its own constitution. During those elections, tainted official Lalit Bhanot became the new IOA secretary-general.
The IOC declared the new body illegal and kept in touch only with IOA officials who had held posts before the elections, mainly Malhotra.
But the IOC Thursday added the names of R.K. Anand and Narinder Batra, who belong to the Abhey Singh Chautala-led faction that was elected in the illegal polls.
“That means that the IOC has changed its stand and recognized the office bearers of the IOA, which it had suspended, by directly dealing with them,” Malhotra said.
IOA secretary-general and IOC member Randhir Singh also declined to attend the Lausanne meeting, saying it was an “internal matter of the IOC.”
The IOC, which was to meet Malhotra’s delegation along with a team from the government, decided to add the two officials after receiving a request from the rival faction.
“In order to give a reasonable opportunity for the different views of the national federations, members of the suspended IOA to be expressed and heard, we wish to inform you that the IOC decided to accept these two additional persons and welcome them to join our meeting on 15 May,” the IOC wrote in a letter to the IOA.
Malhotra was to represent the IOA at Lausanne along with three other colleagues while the government brought in Olympic gold medal-winning shooter Abhinav Bindra to accompany sports minister Jitender Singh and sports secretary P.K. Deb to end the deadlock.
It was not immediately clear whether the other members of Malhotra’s team would attend the meeting.
The Chautala-led faction is reportedly backed by former IOA chief Suresh Kalmadi, who along with Bhanot, spent close to a year in jail over corruption cases related to the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.
An Olympic ban means a national federation is not eligible for funding from the IOC, officials from the suspended federation can’t attend meetings and athletes can compete only under the Olympic flag.
