Senior journalist Rajat Sharma becomes new DDCA boss

Senior journalist and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s “close friend” Rajat Sharma on Monday became the new boss of Delhi and Districts Cricket Association (DDCA).

Sharma defeated former cricketer Madan Lal, who was part of India 1983 World Cup winning squad, by 507 votes. The results of the DDCA polls were announced on Monday and Sharma's group swept the elections by winning all 12 seats.

The journo got a total of 1531 votes while former Test cricketer Lal could only manage to get 1004 votes. Vikas Singh, another candidate in the fray got 232 votes.

For the vice-presidential battle, BCCI acting president CK Khanna’s wife Shashi lost against Rakesh Bansal, younger brother of former DDCA president Sneh Bansal. Bansal junior got 1364 votes against Shashi's 1086 votes.

The defeat might prove to be the end of the road for Khanna in DDCA, where he enjoyed supreme power for nearly three decades.

Sharma and his panel's candidature was backed by a political heavyweight from the ruling party with the IOA president Narinder Batra throwing in all his might. Batra incidentally is a former DDCA treasurer.

"The moment Sharma got blessings from a senior cabinet minister, there was no chance in hell for any other candidate to win this election. What was not expected was a clean panel sweep," a senior DDCA official told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

Journalist Sharma has openly accepted in many of his TV shows that he was a close friend of Arun Jaitley. He had even submitted a statements supporting Jaitley in a defamation case against Arvind Kejriwal.