[lang_en]Shimla: Former sports minister Ram Lal Thakur on Sunday revealed that the state government was sitting on a decision to repeal the Himachal Sports Act, which the previous congress government had made a move for but announcement of early assembly elections stalled it.
Speaking to the media, Thakur said the government under the garb of that act had tried to interfere in the functioning of the Himachal Olympic Association election, which was resisted by the elected autonomous body.
The earlier government had decided to withdraw the HP Sports Act but early elections came in the way and the issue did come up before the present government but for vested interests they have decided to withhold it, he claimed.
Holding the ‘intrusion’ of a rival body that claims to have elected forest minister JP Nadda as the new president and Anurag Thakur, president of HP Cricket Association as the general secretary of the Himachal Olympic Association as ‘illegal’, Ram Lal Thakur claimed that he continued to head the sports body and was also a vice-president of the Indian Olympic Association.
“As member of IOA, I did attend the closing ceremony of the Beijing Games,” said Thakur.
He said the government was attempting to bull doze the autonomous status of the body by issue notices through the cooperative registrars court and at the same time forcefully thrusting BJP men onto it.
All sports bodies registered with HOA have been specially kept out of the purview of the Himachal Sports Act and the registrars’ court has no jurisdiction over it. Thus any directions passed by it do not apply, he said.
Early elections to HOA needed to be conducted as the government asked all government employees to resign from being onboard of any sporting body.
“The new body that was elected unanimously as Bilaspur held a meet on Sunday at Shimla,” said Thakur, “and it was decided to hold a sports festival soon so as to prepare for the national games to be held in Jharkhand.” The term of the new elected body would be till 2012 and the IOA has been apprised about the process adopted, he added.[/lang_en]
As Editor, Ravinder Makhaik leads the team of media professionals at Hill Post.
In a career spanning over two decades through all formats of journalism in Electronic, Print and Online Media, he brings with him enough experience to steer this platform. He lives in Shimla.
