Khanna declines AITA top job

 Anil Khanna was elected the life president of All India Tennis Association (AITA) during its Annual General Meeting (AGM) at Indore on Saturday after he declined to accept the second term of president.

 The name of Khanna was proposed for unanimous election at the AGM by 23 affiliated units. But he refused till the federation and government could reach common ground on sports code.

“Khanna declined to take up the position of president till such time that the matter relating to sports code is finally settled with consideration of Mudgal Committee Report and acceptance of the age and tenure guidelines by IOA, IOC and ITF,” the AITA had stated.

The AITA already has two Honorary Life Presidents in SM Krishna and Yashwant Sinha.  Khanna said he was forced to take the step since the matter revolving around the sports code was persisting for the last two years. “I have always maintained that AITA was the first federation to follow sports code. We have been requesting the government to settle the issue but instead the matter has been pending for the last two years,” Khanna, who is ITF vice-present and Asian Tennis Federation president, said.

Till the time the matter is not resolved the top post of AITA will remain vacant.Other office bearers: Vice Presidents: Aneil Mahajan, Bharat Oza, Chintan N Parikh, C S Sunder Raju, Maj Dalbir Singh, Deepender Hooda, MA Alagappan, Praveen Mahajan, Rajan Kashyap, Shatrughan Sinha.

Secretary General: Hironmoy Chatterjee.Joint Secretaries: Suman Kapur, Anil Dhupar.Treasurer: Raktim Saikia.

Executive Committee for the period 2016-2018: Dr A B Prasad, Dinesh Arora, Vikram Singh Sisodia, Prof TD Francis, Ashok Kumar, Sunder Iyer, Asit Tripathy, C P Kacker, CBN Reddy, Dr Subhash Marriya, Capt Murti Gupta, Noorudin Mather.