The CCI elections were held with online voting on September 22 and 23 and in-person voting on September 24 and 25, with the results declared on September 25 evening
Madhumati Lele Shrivastava
Along with the strong monsoon winds, winds of change were blowing through the hallowed corridors of SoBo’s Cricket Club of India (CCI). For the first time, a woman has been elected to the executive committee of the club. Madhumati Lele Shrivastava won a seat on the committee in the elections, in the 87th Annual General Meeting (AGM), finishing at the top of the candidates beating the second-placed contestant by nearly 200 votes. The CCI elections were held with online voting on September 22 and 23 and in-person voting on September 24 and 25, with the results declared on September 25 evening.
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Lele polled 634 votes (e-voting), 613 (venue voting) and got a total of 1,247. Her tenure on the committee will be for three years. Every year, one-third of the CCI committee retires having completed its term and fresh elections are held. The committee comprises 15 members, who are appointed through voting, and one permanent member.
Women received independent membership only a few years ago. One has to complete 10 years of independent membership to be able to contest elections. CCI will be seeing many women completing that period and becoming eligible to contest elections. While those are rules and statistics, there is also the other aspect that across the board, traditionally, women do not contest as much as men do for seats at clubs.
Elation, optimism
Senior member Nitin Dossa stated that at a time when labels like trailblazer and gamechanger are used very flippantly, this is truly “a historic moment for CCI. Lele’s sweeping win has proved that members want change”.
Sevanti Parikh, former CCI president said the win was, “fantastic and excellent news for the club. Every institution grows through change and new vision, fresh perspective. Lele’s win is indicative of the members’ yearning for that and it is heartening that she has won in such style.”
The vision
Though Lele simply said she was “happy to be on the committee” citing rules that said committee members cannot be interviewed, she had outlined some points in her vision statement for the club. The daughter of Padmabhushan awardee the distinguished Dr R D Lele, had stated that the club has been a second home to her for years, and she will have more time to devote to the institution now that she has retired from work life. Her vision statement in the run up to the elections, titled ‘Vote for a new approach’, had said she would look at targeted activities for senior citizens, adopt digitisation for faster service to members and make the voice of members more robust.
Current CCI President Premal Udani, who won a second term in the hot seat in January, said, “We welcome Ms Lele and I am certain we are going to work as a team. To be the first woman voted to the CCI committee is exemplary, and I am sure, is the start for other women to contest club polls. Today, the CCI is one of the best clubs in the city if not in the country. We are working hard to maintain these high standards as we are gradually unlocking the club according to government guidelines.”
The president said that members were looking forward to easing curbs on the swimming pool. “There are a lot of members who want to swim. We will naturally wait for the government to announce decisions on pools,” he said.
CCI election results
Candidate Votes
Madhumati Lele 1,247
Naval Pandole 1,078
Mihir Amin 1,050
Vineet Naik 1,000
Sachin Bajaj 998
Ajay Aggarwal 944
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