Formation of stewards body unfair - By Shailendra Awasthi I TOI
Posted on - 24 Dec 2014
Formation of stewards body unfair'
By Shailendra Awasthi
TOI
The four elected members of the former chairman Vivek Jain's panel have termed the formation of stewards body by the new managing committee under Khushroo Dhunjibhoy as unfair and have filed their dissent in a letter sent to the committee.
The four members, Jain, Zavaray Poonawalla, Geoffrey Nagpal and Champaklal Zaveri, have pointed out that even though they had refused to be part of the body initially, after being beseeched by several members, they had informed the committee about their willingness to be part of the stewards body well before the first race of the first race day after elections. They feel that the committee could have asked nominated stewards to step down and make way for elected members but committee ignored their plea.
They also claim that it is against norms to include Shiven Surendranath, who had lost the elections, in the body. The group claims that the stewards body is imbalanced as overwhelming majority of stewards owe allegiance to one trainer and are part of one group. They pointed out that the same trainer had alleged that previous committee had hand picked friends as nominated stewards.They felt that it could have been a good gesture of mending the hostility had the new committee asked nominated stewards to make way for elected ones.
Dhunjibhoy, on the other hand, said aggrieved committee members had themselves refused to be part of body in the first place which is minuted. He says that they were also well aware of the members being nominated as stewards so why make noise now. “We have done nothing against norms. We wanted to pick people who knew racing, understand horses and are familiar with the rules,” Dhunjibhoy told TOI.
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