SANTHOSH CHANDRAN

DOHA A TOTAL of 11 candidates will contest in the Indian Cultural Centre (ICC) management committee election on March 30.

The election will held at the ICC’s Ashoka Hall.

March 22 was the closing day for withdrawing nominations.

Deputy Chief of Mission of the Indian embassy and Chief Coordinating Officer of ICC Sanjiv Kohli said, “Nobody has withdrawn nomination as at Thursday.” The 11 candidates in the election for five seats include Sam Kuruvila, Vandoor Aboobacker, Girish Kumar, V Gopinath, Saqib Raza Khan, Syed Ali, V Anandan, Anjan Kumar Ganguly, V Satish, PK Aboobacker and P Unnikrishnan.

This is the first time such a large number of candidates is contesting election in in ICC’s history.

A nomination submitted by Vishal Chowhan was rejected for his non-completing six month’s membership of the ICC which is mandatory for contesting elections.

The president and five management committee members will be separately elected by the members.

According to the rules, the ICC’s new body will consist of a president and 10 management committee members.

Five members will be elected by members and the rest five will be nominated by the Indian ambassador after the election.

Tarun Kumar Basu, currently the ICC general secretary, is the only candidate in the fray for the president’s post. So Basu will be the new president of the ICC for the next two years.

The present committee is headed by KM Varghese. He will complete his two-year term on March 30. The officebearers who had served the ICC for two terms were barred from contesting the election.

Even though the ICC has over 1,100 members, only 20 percent of its members casted their votes in 2010.

ICC is the official body of the Indian expatriate community, functioning under the patronage of the embassy to promote sports and Indian cultural activities.