Jagged Edge

At the start, it was like a sombre chess match, with the two sides engaging in mental combat. Then the bout moved to the Calcutta and Bombay High Courts where it assumed the the look of a more aggressive physical combat. And now, after the BCCI's decision to suspend erstwhile czar Jagmohan Dalmiya, it has begun to resemble a street brawl.

A few hours after the April 9 meeting of the BCCI working committee—Dalmiya used to lord it over this panel—the board announced his suspension for six months pending investigation into allegations. The initial allegation that he had misappropriated Rs 21.74 lakh didn't seem worthy of too much attention, but now, with financial implications appearing to be graver, the focus, and the knives, are getting sharper.

BCCI treasurer N. Srinivasan announced Dalmiya's suspension after BCCI chief Sharad Pawar addressed a press meet after the April 9 working committee meeting in Mumbai. "I don't want to go into details as the matter is pending in the courts," Pawar said, adding that till the time the board took action, Dalmiya could attend BCCI meetings as president of the Cricket Association of Bengal. But Pawar was forced to make up his mind the same evening.

For a man who had presided over the destiny of the world's richest cricket board for over a decade and a half, the suspension is a severe blow. Dalmiya still continues to provoke extreme reactions. If one big bunch wears a this-serves-him-right attitude, another believes that Dalmiya will emerge stronger, the way he did in the match-fixing scandal.

A couple of days after a city civil court in Calcutta stayed the BCCI showcause notice, former BCCI chief Inderjit Singh Bindra denied in Mohali that the BCCI had launched a witch-hunt. "It's a question of accountability. We want to ensure that the board's working becomes transparent," he said. Speaking from the same platform, his younger and more belligerent comrade-in-arms, BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi, lending credence to the witch-hunt theory, said, "If Dalmiya doesn't give a proper answer to the showcause notice, we will put him in jail and throw away the keys."

Dalmiya has preferred not to comment on his suspension, arguing that the issue was sub-judice. Yet, many believe that he is the target of a witch-hunt by a band of men who Dalmiya has singed sometime or the other in the past five years.

Take, for instance, Srinivasan. From the time he raised questions about the PILCOM (Pakistan-India-Lanka Cricket Organising Committee) account at the board's working committee meeting on February 21, he has been spearheading the probe, digging into the account books with enthusiasm. He has reason to feel that as chairman of the BCCI marketing committee, presiding over the infamous TV rights tangle, he was made a scapegoat in 2004-05.

Niranjan Shah hasn't forgotten that he was reduced to being a figurehead in his first stint as board secretary in 2001-02, when Dalmiya was elected president. Shah not only signed the February 27 showcause notice to Dalmiya, asking him to explain why action should not be taken against him for irregularities pertaining to the PILCOM account, but also filed anFIR in Mumbai's Marine Drive Police Station on March 16 against Dalmiya and other former BCCI officials S.K. Nair, Jyoti Bajpai and Kishore Rungta.

Bindra, a one-time chum of Dalmiya's, found out that their falling out came at a price. He was issued a showcause notice in 2000 in the wake of the match-fixing scandal and banned from the board for two years in March 2001. Those who know Bindra say he has always believed that the then BCCI president A.C. Muthiah was acting at Dalmiya's behest.

Dalmiya had done all he could to stop Modi from sniffing power in the board. He had backed Anurag Thakur in Himachal Pradesh and had thrown in his weight behind the Rungtas in Rajasthan until a change of government in Jaipur made it easy for Modi to dethrone the Rungtas.

Above all, Pawar himself. There is a feeling that he has not forgiven Dalmiya for engineering his defeat in the BCCI general meeting in 2004. Dalmiya had then exercised his casting vote in favour of Ranbir Singh Mahendra, having kept some Pawar backers away from the election process. There is also word that Pawar was not too keen on imposing a suspension but the hawks, having roped in Muthiah to attend the April 9 meeting as a special invitee, prevailed upon him to exercise that option.

They have come together to fight a two-pronged battle against Dalmiya—within the board and outside. His suspension from the BCCI is part of the strategy to ensure that he does not get too involved in the board's activities. For example, he did train his guns on the TV deal that the BCCI signed with Nimbus and alleged that the board had lost close to Rs 80 crore. If he were kept busy, focusing on restoring his pride, he would have little time to look into the board's affairs, let alone criticise it.

After a seven-day grilling session, including four days in the western megapolis by the Economic Offences Wing of Mumbai Police, Dalmiya can be expected to brace himself for a long battle. The game of chess will continue for some time. Even if this is an ugly fight, check mate is some distance away.