BI President Sandeep Jajodia ousted, cries foul

The administrative turmoil in Indian boxing took a new turn as Federation President Sandeep Jajodia was today ousted after an overwhelming vote against him in the No Confidence Motion brought in at a Special General Meeting here, a move which was termed "illegal" by the incumbent.

Jajodia lost the motion 2-55 after 57 of the 64 general body members gathered here in a meeting from which he was conspicuous by his absence.

"The house was more or less united on this. We had given him enough time to show what he could do but the recent happenings including an ugly spat with Jay Kowli (BI Secretary General who resigned last night), showed that we were mistaken in placing our faith in him," said West Bengal representative Asit Banerjee said.

"The way forward now is that we will have an interim head to carry out the day-to-day routines and fresh elections will be conducted in the 45 to 60 days. We will be writing to the International Boxing Association (AIBA) in a day or two and due procedure will be followed," he added.

Current vice-President Miren Paul is expected to be the consensus candidate for being the interim head.

Jajodia, on his part, issued a statement to say that the meeting itself was illegal."...this Special General Meeting which is sought to be held on 3rd of May, 2015  stands illegal and void. In the event you still go ahead with any such meeting, you would do so at your own risks and responsibility," he said, asserting that the states "automatically stand disqualified as members" owing to their participation in the IOA-conducted National Games.

Interestingly, erstwhile Indian Amateur Boxing Federation's (IABF) former President Abhay Singh Chautala was also present at the venue of the meeting but officials insisted that he did not participate in the proceedings.

However, talking to reporters after the meeting, Chautala said the current leadership has failed in living upto the faith reposed in them.

"I don't think it is fair to call this meeting illegal because these very people elected Mr Jajodia. They have issues which are quite genuine and they took this step because their grievances were not heard," he said.

Earlier, BI Secretary General Jay Kowli resigned after a fallout with Jajodia for forging his signatures in a letter to the Asian Boxing Confederation.

Jajodia trained his guns at the IOA, saying that the body played a dubious role by denying Boxing India (BI) recognition and keeping the IABF affiliated despite it being terminated by AIBA.

"...despite AIBA giving Boxing India the necessary recognition, the Indian Olympics Association intentionally did not recognise Boxing India and failed to disband the ad-hoc committee it had created for boxing. This was despite AIBA clearly instructing IOA for dismantling the Ad-hoc committee," he said.

The members, who attended today's meeting, said the AIBA has been fully apprised of the situation and no constitutional violation has been done in bringing the motion against Jajodia.

"In fact, despite Kowli's resignation last night, we still brought a No Confidence Motion against him because he sent that letter to the President and not to the house. We did not want this technicality to be a reason for any fresh misunderstanding," said a representative of the West Zone.

The current set-up has time until the next six months to carry on without a formal President.

"But we plan to conduct elections in the two months itself. Nothing would be affected," said another state representative.

Till September 2012, Chautala headed the IABF, which was terminated in 2013 by AIBA for manipulating the elections. At the time of termination, the IABF was headed by Abhishek Matoria, who happened to be Chautala's brother-in-law.

BI was instituted in September last year after elections monitored by AIBA. But it had been struggling to run the show smoothly owing to the IOA's adamant refusal to grant recognition to it.

Since its inception, BI conducted the men's and women's Nationals but has not been able to put up a united front in the face of disgruntled state units, who have complained about Jajodia being inaccessible.

Recently, an Executive Committee Meeting called by BI had been boycotted by 16 of the 20 EC members with even Kowli skipping it owing to differences with Jajodia.