CHANDIGARH — Asian Games gold-winning former shot putter Bahadur Singh Sagoo was
on Tuesday elected unopposed as the Athletics Federation of India's president,
succeeding the long-serving Adille Sumariwalla in the top position.
The 51-year-old Sagoo, who will be serving a four-year
term (2025-29), won a shot put gold in the 2002 Busan Asian Games and also took
part in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics. He is a member of the AFI Athletes
Commission.
Sagoo was the lone candidate left in the fray after
incumbent senior vice-president Anju Bobby George opted out of the race for the
top position due to personal reasons.
His election was formalised at the two-day Annual General
Meeting of the AFI.
Anju was also elected for her second term as senior
vice-president.
Sagoo, who hails from Jalandhar and is currently serving
as commandant in Punjab Police, had won the men's shot put gold in 2002 Asian
Games with a throw of 19.03m. He has a lifetime best of 20.40m, and is also a
Padma Shri recipient.
He is also a member of the senior selection committee.
There were no elections for the remaining posts, a repeat
of what happened during the last AGM in 2020.
"I am thankful to all the members for electing me as
president. I will take forward the existing programmes of the AFI which are
already robust and showing results. My team and I will try to take everyone
along to take Indian athletics even further," Sagoo said.
Delhi unit's top official Sandeep Mehta was elected
unopposed as the AFI secretary. He was the senior joint secretary in the
outgoing executive council.
Stanely Jones was made the treasurer while Jyotirmoyee
Sikdar, who won the 800m and 1500m gold in the 1998 Asian Games, will be the
joint secretary.
Among the new executive committee members will be Sudha
Singh, who won the 3000m steeplechase gold at the 2010 Asian Games, former 100m
national record holder Rachita Mistry, Harjinder Singh and Priyanka Bhanot --
daughter of AFI Planning Commission Chairman Lalit Bhanot.
Out of the 18 elected members of Executive Council, nine
are former sportspersons and six females, according to Sumariwalla.
The election process was conducted by retired Punjab and
Haryana High Court judge Raj Sekhar Attri. Ethical Compliance and Risk Officer
of World Athletics Niels Lindholm attended the formal election process online
on Tuesday.
Sports Ministry official SPS Tomar was present as
election observer.
"The election was to be held in October last year
but got slightly delayed because of ongoing activities in the AFI as well as
the Athletes Commission elections that we had to conduct," Sumariwalla
said.
"We requested World Athletics and Sport Ministry to
delay the elections by three months and the permission was granted."
The election notice was issued on December 22 and the
last date of filing nominations was December 29.
The 67-year-old Sumariwalla has been the AFI president
since 2012 and was not eligible to contest elections this time under the
existing National Sports Code.
During his tenure, Neeraj Chopra won the historic gold in
the Tokyo Olympics followed by a silver in the Paris Games.
Sumariwalla is currently a member of the powerful
executive board of World Athletics.
New AFI office-bearers:
President: Bahadur Singh Sagoo
Senior Vice-President: Anju Bobby George
Vice-Presidents: Abu Metha, Jayanta Malla Baruah, AK Sharma
Secretary: Sandeep Mehta
Treasurer: Stanley Jones
Senior Joint Secretary: S Srinibas Patnaik
Joint-secretaries: Sharat Chandra Singh, Jyotirmoyee
Sikdar, Finley L Pariat
Executive Council members: Sudha Singh, Harjinder Singh
Gill, Sharda Devi Jadam, Priyanka Bhanot, Rachita Mistry, A Rajavelu, K
Sarangapani.
