‘Hurt’ Sharad Pawar resigns as MCA prez

The Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) fight to stall the reforms directed by the Supreme Court suffered a telling blow as veteran politician Sharad Pawar tendered his resignation from the president’s post of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA), here on Saturday.

The former ICC and BCCI president is one of the biggest name in BCCI administration and he has stepped down adhering to the norm of age-cap of 70 years as prescribed by the Lodha panel stating that he is “hurt” by the perception that people stick around in BCCI as it is “lucrative”.

“The Supreme Court has taken a decision that officials above 70 years of age should not remain in cricket bodies. This decision is applicable to me. That is why I am resigning from the position of MCA president and I request you (secretary) to accept it,” the NCP supremo said in his resignation letter to MCA, submitted during the association’s Emergent Managing Committee meeting.

The MCA managing committee will meet soon to decide whether to accept it or not, said its joint secretary PV Shetty after another committee member, Vinod Deshpande, read out the resignation letter submitted by Pawar to the media.

“In reality the positions are filled through democratic means. Since these appointments were happening through democratic means, I was happy to work in that position,” he said in the letter.

“During my term as MCA president, I did not take any allowance or get any financial benefit. While building new facilities, we took care that the name of MCA will be taken with pride. ” he wrote further in his resignation note.