Embattled president of the West Demerara Cricket Association (WDCA) Vishnu Shradananda is claiming that he was not invited to any Ordinary General Meeting (OGM) called by executives of the association and the meeting was an illegal one.
Speaking to Stabroek Sport by telephone yesterday, Shradananda said:”I’m the president and if any meeting is to be held, I have to be consulted. I did not sanction any meeting. I’m the person who has to authorise any meeting. As a matter of fact, Ken Elexy died and Paul Cheong acted in his position as secretary and at no time did we sit down and discuss any meeting.”
According to a release, affiliates of the WDCA on Saturday elected a new executive to serve for the new term after moving a no-confidence motion against the Shradananda-led body.
However, the Demerara Cricket Board (DCB) has not recognised the newly-elected executives.
According to the WDCA release, Anand Sanasie, Krishna Lall, Ganesh Arjune and Lalta Digamber were elected to serve as President, Secretary, Assistant Secretary and Competitions Committee Chairman respectively at the Ordinary General Meeting which was held at the Wales Community Centre.
The meeting was called after the Cornelia Ida Cricket Club moved a motion of no confidence against Shradananda, who served as president in 2006. The motion was seconded by the Windsor Forest Cricket Club and, according to the release, supported by 22 other clubs affiliated to the WDCA.
Shradananda said he and his duly elected executives met on Friday last and dealt with the no-confidence motion and all the executives were there except Krishna Mangal, a co-opted member.
Sanasie admitted that Shradananda was present on Friday, but said when the motion came up Shradananda walked out of the meeting. The no-confidence motion was moved the following day.
According to a copy of the motion submitted by the Cornelia Ida club, one of the reasons for moving the no confidence motion was the fact that the competitions committee failed to organize any cricket competition for the past 10 months. Shradananda refuted this saying that the WDCA conducted the Hand-in-Hand second-division tournament, as well as staged tournaments for the under-15, under-17 and under-19 teams. He said a Twenty/20 tournament was started but it was still to be completed.
Asked what was holding up the completion of the latter tournament, Shradananda said there were some problems with finance. He, however, pledged that the tournament will be completed shortly.
But Sanasie refuted Shradananda’s version, saying that the competitions Shradananda spoke about were competitions organised by the Demerara Cricket Board (DCB) to which the WDCA is affiliated. “I’m not saying that the guys did not participate in any matches over the past 10 months or so, what I’m saying is that those competitions were not organized by the West Demerara Association,” Sanasie declared.
Shradananda, however said chairman of the competitions committee Hassan Inshan was at Friday’s meeting and he (Inshan) verified that competitions for the various divisions were indeed staged last year.
The motion also cited the continued intervention of Mangal, who, according to the motion, is a co-opted member of the association.
To this, Shradananda said Mangal was co-opted after the last Annual General Meeting (AGM) and he could perform the business of the association like any other duly elected member.
“Mangal is chairman of the selection committee. Not me put him there. He’s also a selector on the Demerara Cricket Board,” he said.
Asked about the alleged misappropriation of competitions entrance fees as cited by the motion, Shradananda said: “There’s no question of money, the question is receipts. Receipts were collected but were not passed on to the treasurer in time and some people feel the delay prompted the misappropriation of funds issue.”
To this Sanasie said,”The only person in receipt of the receipt book is the treasurer, so there was no need for receipts to be passing on to the treasurer. Monies for competitions were collected long before but no competitions were run off.”
Told that the motion also cited that he (Shradananda) selected his son for Demerara trials even though his son did not participate in any WDCA competition last year, Shradananda said: “that’s absolute nonsense. The DCB selected him not me. I’m no selector.”
Told that the Cornelia Ida club was also alleging that cricket gear obtained by his administration could not be accounted for, Shradananda said the gear was donated by Food for the Poor to the association.
He pointed out that although he was unaware of the amount the association received, the association has possession of two boxes of balls and a set of pads that were received from Food for the Poor and these would be used by the various divisional teams.
“I don’t know how much (gear) was handed over to (Ken) Elexy (now deceased). I don’t know the amount, but what me and Hassan Inshan received, we still have possession of. On Friday I asked how much gear was donated by Food for the Poor and (Anand) Sanasie who was present did not say anything.”
Told that the motion also cited that no Ordinary General Meeting was held for almost a year, Shradananda said he agreed, but questioned how many meetings Sanasie called when he served a four-year term as president of the association.
Asked if he appointed Gopi Lall to fill the post of secretary after Elexy’s death, Shradananda said after Elexy died there was no other person to fill the post so he solicited the assistance of Lall to do the job and Lall readily agreed.
However, he said the very next day Sanasie called and informed him that the move was unconstitutional and he immediately withdrew all the documents that were handed over to Lall the evening before. “The man did not even serve for 12 hours in the post,” Shradananda declared.
