Pawar has big plans for MCA

Ashish Magotra

The battle for the Mumbai Cricket Association elections, on January 19, is hotting up. Nationalist Congress Party chief and former Maharashtra chief minister Sharad Pawar's camp met at Shivaji Park Gymkhana on Wednesday evening, to put forward its agenda. Pawar has big plans for the MCA, which he promised to implement, if elected president.

The meeting was attended by supporters of the Pawar panel and some MCA members.

Here's what Pawar says he will do if he elected president:

1. Make Bombay a sure-stop for all touring teams. "If you go to England, your tour is not considered over till you play a Test at the Lord's. That's exactly what I plan to do for Bombay."

2. Work on the development of cricket at the grassroot level; from inter-school and inter-collegiate levels.

3. End the battle between the MCA and Garware Club. "Lakhs of rupees spent on the court battle could have been spent on development of the game in Bombay."

In response to former India captain Ajit Wadekar's allegation that he attended only one annual general meeting of the Maharashtra Olympic Association in seven years, Pawar told rediff.com: "Wadekar doesn't know what he is talking about. There are three meetings a year; they are held at my convenience and I attend all."

He added: "A city which has over 50 cricketers who have represented India has only two - Sachin Tendulkar and Ajit Agarkar -- in the Indian team now; that should change.

"I am here to back the MCA, resolve all disputes and take Bombay back to its glorious days."

Meanwhile, most in the Pawar camp are confident of a landslide victory for their candidates, though there are some who feel that the fight for the president's post is going to be close.

Group	Sharad Pawar	Manohar Joshi	Bal Mahadalkar
For President	Sharad Pawar	Ajit Wadekar	--
Vice-President	Jaya Shetty	Pravin Barve Raju Kulkarni	Milind Rege Ravi Sawant
For Secretaries	Ravi Mandrekar Prakash Kelkar	Sanjeev Khanolkar Mayank Khandwala	Ratnakar Shetty Sudhir Naik
For Treasurer	Kishore Kuvawala	Ramesh Kosambia	--
For Committee	Shripad Halbe Girish Patki Nirmal Mhatre K Jayantilal Sanjay Jaywant Sham Raul K T Shetty Vidya Paradkar	Pravin Gogri Dara Pochkhanwala Dr Aroon Samsi Deepak Jadhav Chandu Pandit Uday Gharat Nadeem Memon Dilip Karande Wasim Master Jayant Jhaveri	Lalchand Rajput Karsan Ghavri Hemant Waingankar Avi Sule Dr P V Shetty Madhu Patwardhan Sameer Bandekar Shrikant Tigdi Hemu Dalvi Nitin Dalal Laxman Chauhan

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