With less than a week left for the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) elections, the group led by Srikanta Datta Narasimharaja Wadiyar, the scion of the Mysore royal family, intensified its campaign by making a series of allegations, backed up by documentary evidence, against the ruling Brijesh Patel camp.

Alleging that the ruling camp lacked transparency in financial issues, Wadiyar, who is contesting for the post of president against Gundappa Viswanath in the September 9 elections, said: "No man can sit in judgment over one’s own case. It violates the principles of natural justice, but it is happening at the KSCA now."

Wadiyar, along with his group members, addressed a press conference at the Bangalore Palace on Monday afternoon.

Backing up his claims, Wadiyar alleged that Patel was associated with three companies — Composite Travels, Sporting Frontiers and Stella Vista Technologies — that had business transactions with the KSCA. "It is a fact that was never revealed to the KSCA managing committee.

A company called Composite Travels had transactions worth Rs 47 lakh with the KSCA, and this company was actually started by Brijesh Patel. How can you be the association secretary and at the same time award contracts to a company that you run?" queried Wadiyar.

Pointing out that in-stadia advertising rights were given to Sporting Frontiers, Wadiyar alleged that the company had KSCA's financial advisory committee member BN Subramanya as its promoter, director and share holder, and that the managing committee had been kept in the dark about this fact. "The company was formed shortly after Patel took charge as the KSCA secretary," Wadiyar went on.

Indelible link

Next on Wadiyar's list was the giant video screen purchased from a South African company, Stella Vista Technologies, in 2005. "The South African company has listed Brijesh Patel as its Indian representative and in fact Mr Patel had launched a company named Stella Vista (India) Pvt. Ltd. in 2005, suggesting an indelible link with the South African company. It is yet to be ascertained whether Mr Patel has derived any latent benefits from this transaction," Wadiyar said.

Ashok Raghavan, executive president of the Deccan United Cricket Club, distributed copies of a dossier titled "Is This Transparency?" at the press meet. The dossier contained copies of affidavits filed at the Registrar's office for setting up Composite Travels, Sporting Frontiers (India) Pvt Ltd and Stella Vista (India) Pvt Ltd as proof of their charges against Patel.

"You cannot be a honorary secretary and conduct business with your own company. “In that case, you cease to be holding an honorary office," Raghavan said. “If that is the case, maybe they should start bidding for such posts and hand over the post to the highest bidder.”

Wadiyar then assured of a transparent association if elected, and promised that he and his team would ensure that no member would be allowed to link their business interests with the KSCA.

"We will keep everything clear and even in terms of the number of tickets or passes issued for a match -- be it for the association president or be it for the various State government agencies -- we will keep all the details in our computer database and any member can check for any anomalies,” Wadiyar said.