Srinivasan steps aside: Win, draw or end of innings?

Chennai, Jun 3: So, N Srinivasan has "stepped aside" as BCCI president, not "stepped down". What does this really mean? How much of his powers have been abridged and for how long? There are two versions on this: One that Srinivasan has merely, so to say, gone on leave and will be back; the other, that once he's out of actually running the board, he's virtually gone for good.

The Jaitley-Shukla camp claims there's hardly any possibility of Srinivasan's return. The probe into the betting-fixing scandal and Srinivasan's son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan's alleged role in it is unlikely to take anything less than two months, they say. By that time, it will be close to September and time for the BCCI presidential election, where the chances of Srinivasan being re-elected are slim, according to this camp.

Srinivasan is reported to have suggested that this interim arrangement should be for a month. Jaitley countered by saying it would be for as long as the probe lasted. In other words, there was no agreement on there being a time bar on the probe.

In the meantime, will Srinivasan continue to represent India at the ICC, as he is reported to have demanded? While the Jaitley-Shukla camp says he won't go to the ICC, there must be a formal process to replace Srinivasan at the ICC with someone else. How will that happen? Will the working group headed by Jagmohan Dalmiya be empowered to do so?

Which raises another crucial question - what is Dalmiya's statutory/legal position as working group chief?

In the BCCI constitution, there's no provision for an interim president while the president is still around. Former BCCI president Shashank Manohar is reported to have said that a diarchy would never work.

'No one challenged my decision'

Denying I S Bindra's claims that he "fought tooth and nail" to get the BCCI chief to resign, N Srinivasan told a TV channel that the meeting was "without any acrimony" and that not a single person challenged his decision to step aside and ask Dalmiya to take over. He also said that Ajay Shirke and Sanjay Jagdale would return to the BCCI on Monday.

In the clubby set-up that BCCI is, perhaps the constitution can be ignored if the majority decides on something, but will Dalmiya get to take money decisions ? Will banks recognize his power , for instance, to sign a cheque without a formal communication to this effect from the board?

Indeed, if the claims of the Jaitley-Shukla camp prove to be right, it would appear that Srinivasan has been tricked into believing that he has merely gone for a sabbatical while the truth is that he's been shafted and banished for good. So in the coming days, there is likely to be more acrimony as one "understanding" clashes with the other. While this might turn out to be a clever, clever way of getting Srinivasan out, the Indian cricket fan might still have a final question - this entire exercise was also meant to fix accountability and making people pay for their acts of omission/commission. That won't be the case. After all, Srinivasan is not going out in disgrace.