Sharad Pawar remains MCA president

Sharad Pawar has beaten Vijay Patil by 34 votes to retain the Mumbai Cricket Association president's post. The Pawar-Mahaddalkar panel has also swept the biennial polls, winning 15 of the 17 managing committee posts.

The election result came as a severe blow for Patil's Cricket First panel, whose ambitious campaign bore little fruit, resulting in his panel tasting success in only two posts. In 2013, when Patil had formed his panel for the first time, he had won four seats in the managing committee despite not contesting for all the posts.

With 24 hours remaining for the polling day, there was little to choose between the two panels. But the tide turned in favour of the Pawar-Mahaddalkar group's favour during its last meeting with the voters on the eve of the election. Pawar indicated that all the MCA voters would be allotted memberships at MCA's plush facilities at the Bandra-Kurla complex and Kandivali.

To add to the move which worked like a trump card, Pawar ensured that he personally met with each of the 321 members who cast their vote a minute before they entered the polling booth and his personal appeals to every voter helped his panel. According to Pawar-Mahaddalkar panelists, the masterstroke was the catalyst for the panel's landslide victory.

"The poll mandate was an apt response to those who had said whatever about us in the lead-up," Pawar said, taunting at Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray's statement of Pawar's unwillingness to retire while supporting Patil's panel. "We accept the mandate of the MCA members with all humility. Now that the election is over, it is time for all the elected candidates to work together as a team."

Former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar and Bharatiya Janata Party member of state legislative assembly Ashish Shelar, both from the Pawar-Mahaddalkar faction, were elected as vice-presidents. It resulted in former India pace bowler Abey Kuruvilla, contesting for Patil's Cricket First group, suffering a loss for the same post.

While Pawar and his winning candidates, especially Shelar from the BJP, celebrated emphatically, Patil made a quiet exit. The only consolation for Cricket First came in the form of Dr Unmesh Khanvilkar and former India cricketer Pravin Amre getting elected as joint secretary and managing committee member, respectively.

"As Mr Pawar said, now we both are as good members of his team. It will be up to them now to consider some of our ideas and see if they can be implemented," said Khanvilkar, who emerged as the giant killer.

While Dr PV Shetty retained his post, Khanvilkar was elected along with him, ahead of former BCCI vice-president Ravi Savant [Pawar-Mahaddalkar group] and former India opening batsman Lalchand Rajput [Cricket First]. Pawar referred to Savant's loss with a proverb in Marathi: "Gad aala pan sinh gela [We have captured the fort but lost a knight]."

The ruling faction's Nitin Dalal, who was a joint secretary for the last four years, prevailed over Mayank Khandwala in the battle for the treasurer's post.

In the first major decision of the new regime, Pawar announced that the MCA rulebook would be amended to create reserved seats for women representatives from the next election onwards.

"I want to see women being part of the managing committee and we would try to make the necessary constitutional amendment so that women are represented in the next committee," Pawar said after announcing the election results.

None of the 34 candidates who featured in the election was a woman. In fact, no woman has ever contested an MCA election so far. The modalities of Pawar's decision are likely to be worked out in the first managing committee of the new regime on Friday.