TCA seeks ACB probe against HCA boss

Hyderabad: The problems of Dr G Vivekananda, President of Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) have just got magnified. In the soup for the manner the SGM was conducted and the acrimony that was created during the no-holds-barred meeting, Vivekananda is now confronted with yet another problem, one whose magnitude is seemingly large and more potent than his opposition from with the HCA hierarchy.

Hitting out at the man in the hot seat, for his reported comments against their functioning, the top guns of The Telangana Cricket Association (TCA) on Wednesday launched a virulent attack by accusing him of committing a ‘fraud’ that ostensibly translated into crores of rupees.  Addressing a press conference here, Association President Yendela Lakshminarayan and Secretary D Guruva Reddy demanded a full-fledged ACB probe into the HCA accounts for the past two years.  The tenure of the current body was ridden with ‘nefarious excesses, multitude acts of omissions and commissions and abuse of books of accounts,’ they alleged.  

Charging that he was not fit to occupy the post, they said that apart from continuing to occupy the seat illegally and despite brazen conflict of interests one too many, they said that money was being siphoned off in the name of expenses for conduct of matches and making pitches match-ready. ‘Not even single ground has been created or developed by them,’ they said.

The TCA big two said that the T20 league that the HCA has announced was a mere platform aimed to serve as the springboard for the promotion of the family-run Visakha Brand. They wondered how such accounts were manipulated when the man was occupying the seat ‘illegally’ and that too discharging his ‘duties’ in a manner that was detrimental to well established democratic norms. They alleged that nearly Rs two crore was swindled by the President and his yes-men.

‘How can he bypass the Executive Committee and call for SGM and who gave him the powers to influence the suspension of the incumbent Secretary,’ they asked. Making a comparative analysis with documentary proof they said that unlike HCA that had thwarted the cricketing dreams of thousands in Telangana region with their elitist leanings, TCA was an entity that was for, of and by cricketers. Passion runs in the veins of everyone at TCA , which is why it is enjoying the patronisation of people from all walks of life and for whom playing the gentleman’s game in letter and spirit was all that mattered at the end of the day.