Jaipur, July 2 (IANS) Rajasthan cricket over the past two-and-a-half years witnessed the rise and fall of the Rajasthan Cricket Association’s (RCA) ad-hoc committee — a body that was constituted as a temporary arrangement after the resignation of the association’s elected president but gradually evolved into a prolonged administrative regime marked by repeated extensions, leadership changes and allegations of promoting “parivarvad”.
Also, there were repeated extensions, changing conveners, internal disputes and mounting controversies, however the one task it was created to accomplish, to conduct elections, remained unfulfilled.
The long-running chapter reached a decisive conclusion on Wednesday, when the Rajasthan High Court suspended the ad-hoc committee, appointed senior IAS officer Bhaskar A. Sawant as administrator and directed that elections be held at the earliest.
The order effectively ended an interim arrangement that had survived three conveners, multiple extensions and nearly two and a half years of uncertainty.
The story began on February 23, 2024, when the Rajasthan State Sports Council sealed the RCA office at Jaipur’s Sawai Mansingh Stadium after terminating the MoU over alleged dues of nearly Rs 8 crore. Three days later, then RCA president Vaibhav Gehlot resigned, bringing the elected administration to an end and setting in motion a chain of events that would keep the state’s premier cricket body under ad-hoc rule for far longer than anyone had anticipated.
To fill the vacuum, the state government constituted the first ad-hoc committee on March 28, 2024, appointing BJP MLA Jaideep Bihani as its convener. The committee was given a clear mandate, to stabilise the association and conduct elections within three months. Initially, the move was welcomed as an opportunity to reform cricket administration and restore democratic governance. However, the optimism was short-lived. Within months, the committee itself became embroiled in controversy.
Allegations surfaced that key decisions were being taken unilaterally, while several members claimed meetings had virtually stopped and collective decision-making had broken down. Instead of preparing the association for elections, the committee increasingly found itself defending its own functioning. Yet, despite the controversies, the committee continued to receive extensions. Its first three-month tenure, which was to end in June 2024, was extended.
Another extension followed in September 2024, then again in December 2024, and once more in March 2025. With every extension, expectations of elections faded further while criticism from district cricket associations, players and administrators grew louder. Many began questioning whether the ad-hoc arrangement, conceived as a temporary measure, was quietly becoming a permanent one.
Facing mounting opposition, internal disagreements and complaints regarding the committee’s functioning, the government finally replaced Jaideep Bihani, appointing Deendayal (DD) Kumawat as the new convener. The leadership changed, but the narrative did not. Administrative disputes persisted, the election process remained stalled, and repeated assurances that polls would be held soon failed to inspire confidence among stakeholders.
In March 2026, the government reshuffled the leadership once again, appointing Dr Mohit Jaswant Yadav as the third convener of the ad-hoc committee. While the committee continued to oversee cricketing activities, it failed to accomplish the very objective for which it had been constituted, holding elections and restoring an elected executive body. Every leadership change was accompanied by fresh promises, but the outcome remained the same.
As part of this reshuffle, the incumbent convener, Deendayal Kumawat, was removed from his post. Furthermore, BJP State Spokesperson Pinkesh Jain was also dropped from the committee. In the last announcement, the ad hoc committee featured Mohit Yadav, son of BJP MLA Jaswant Yadav, as the convener of the committee, while others include Dhananjay Singh Khimsar (son of Health Minister Gajendra Singh Khimsar), Arisht Singhvi (grandson of former Minister Chandraraj Singhvi), Ashish Tiwari (son of BJP MP Ghanshyam Tiwari), and Arjun Beniwal (son of MLA Sanjeev Beniwal), all five members who were sons of ruling BJP politicians.
Flagging this reshuffle, the leader of opposition Tika Ram Jully said that by appointing sons of ministers and MLAs to the RCA committee, the ruling BJP, which often questions ‘parivarvad’ in politics, has made RCA a launching pad for relatives of politicians.
By then, frustration within Rajasthan’s cricket fraternity had reached a tipping point. Players, district associations and former office-bearers openly questioned why the RCA continued to function under an interim arrangement nearly two and a half years after the resignation of its elected president. What had started as a short-term administrative solution had evolved into one of the longest-running ad-hoc regimes in the association’s history.
The impasse eventually reached the Rajasthan High Court on Wednesday, where judges questioned the repeated extensions granted to the ad-hoc committee and sought an explanation for the continued delay in conducting elections.
Observing that an ad-hoc committee could not continue indefinitely, the High Court suspended the committee, appointed senior IAS officer Bhaskar A. Sawant as administrator and directed that elections be held at the earliest. The court’s intervention effectively brought the prolonged chapter to a close.
It also echoed what Rajasthan’s cricket fraternity had been demanding for nearly two years, that the state’s premier cricket body should return to elected leadership instead of continuing under an endlessly extended interim arrangement.
From the sealing of the RCA office on February 23, 2024, to Vaibhav Gehlot’s resignation on February 26, the constitution of the first ad-hoc committee on March 28, followed by successive tenure extensions in June 2024, September 2024, December 2024 and March 2025, the story remained one of recurring postponements.
With every extension, criticism intensified, confidence got eroded, and questions were seen multiplying.
In the end, it was judicial intervention — rather than administrative action — that dismantled the extended ad-hoc regime, paving the way for long-awaited elections in Rajasthan’s premier cricket body.
–IANS
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