Patel new AICF President, Chauhan Secretary: Returning Officer

Bringing down the curtains on the All India Chess Federation's (AICF) elections, the Returning Officer, former Supreme Court judge, Justice Fakkir Mohamed Ibrahim Kalifulla on Tuesday declared five persons as elected unopposed for various posts for the period 2020-2023.

The five are Ajay H. Patel as President, Bharat Singh Chauhan as the Secretary, Naresh Sharma as Treasurer, M. Arun Singh as Joint Secretary and Vipnesh Bharadwaj as Vice President.

In his order Kalifulla also said the proposed election scheduled on February 23 in Hyderabad cannot take place.

"As the election process has been concluded, all original relevant files will be forwarded to the Registry of the High Court, Madras on February 12," he said.

However, the opposing camp is still hopeful.

"The final outcome of the election will be decided by the Madras High Court. We are still hopeful," FIDE zone 3.7 President R.M. Dongre, a former Maharashtra state player, told IANS.

FIDE is the global chess body and Dongre, who belongs to the Raja camp, had his nomination for AICF Secretary's post rejected.

Earlier in the day Raja and others had approached the Madras High Court for relief against the rejection of their nominations by Kalifulla.

On Sunday, Kalifulla had rejected the nomination forms of 23 contestants -- including that of incumbent President P.R. Venketrama Raja and several others -- as they did not file their nominations in person as specified in the para 6.4 of the National Sports Development Code.

However, apex court advocate Sanjay K. Chadha, who is representing Patel and Chauhan, told IANS that the Madras High Court will accept the decision of the Returning Officer.

"The opposite party has to challenge it by way of an election petition," he said.-IANS