The MCA presidential elections on July 23 will be a competition between Nana Patole, Milind Narwekar, Jeetendra Awhad and Sanjay Naik. They are said to be following the footsteps of the past representatives like Sharad Pawar and Vilasrao Deshmukh.
Doubts have emerged that the Mazgaon Cricket Club has decided to appoint Nana Patole, the Congress state unit president as their representative for the Mumbai Cricket Association or the MCA.
The MCA controls the Mumbai cricket team and organises and sanctions cricket tournaments in the Mumbai district. The Mumbai team is the leading team in India’s first class cricket. This team has won the Ranji Trophy 41 times. Legendary cricketers like Vijay Merchant, Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar etc, have played for the MCA teams. Jurisdiction of the MCA includes area up to the Dahanu in the Western Suburbs, Badlapur in the Central Suburbs and Navi Mumbai up to Kharghar.
Source: Mumbai Cricket Association
The MCA was Bombay Cricket Association when it was established in 1930, but later on changed to Mumbai Cricket Association when Bombay was renamed as Mumbai.
The MCA had built its own stadium in 1972, when S.K. Wankhede was the president of the MCA. The stadium has been named after him. The Wankhede stadium has hosted not only national but also many international matches in all its years of usage. The 2011 ICC cricket World Cup was organised on this particular ground where India defeated Sri Lanka and lifted the World Cup after 28 years. It serves as a home field for the Mumbai cricket team. Cricket Centre which is the headquarter of the BCCI has been located in the premises of MCA since 2007.
Nana Patole has chosen to stay mum about this topic, but it is believed that he will contest for the election on the 23rd of July.
Source: zeenews.india.com
The position of the MCA president has been lying vacant since the 10th of July due to the unfortunate death of the former president Amol Kale in New York.
Former CMs Sharad Pawar and Prithviraj Chavan of the NCP, Vilasrao Deshmukh of the Congress and the former union minister Gopinath Munde of the BJP have represented the Mazgaon Cricket Club in the Mumbai Cricket Association in the past years.
Vilasrao Deshmukh had succeeded Sharad Pawar and managed the matters of the MCA for over a decade. He had won the election against the former captain of the national cricket team Dilip Vengsarkar by 47 votes.
Patole mentioned, “The Mazgaon Cricket Club has appointed me as its contender on the MCA. I am told that the presidential elections are scheduled to be held on the 23rd of July. I am yet to decide about it. My well wishers feel I should contest the balloting.”
Nana Patole contested in the Lok Sabha election in 2014 as a BJP/NDA candidate and secured a victory defeating the Union Minister Praful Patel by a huge margin of 149,254. He served as a Member of the Legislative Assembly for Sakoli from 2009 to 2014. He is known for his endorsement for the OBC rights and he was also the leader of the opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. He submitted a letter to the Speaker Sumitra Mahajan stating his resignation from the Lok Sabha membership in the year 2017. He had mentioned it was due to the double standards of the BJP on the farmers’ policies.
Thereafter on 11th January 2018 he rejoined the Indian National Congress and was appointed as the national chairman of the All India Kisan Congress.
Besides Nana Patole, Shiv Sena (UBT) secretary Milind Narwekar, NCP(SP) Jeetendra Awhad and vice-president of the MCA Sanjay Naik may contest for the presidency as well.
