One body, two voter lists: The curious case of Indian chess

Chennai : The game of chess may have several variations starting from the first move. But can the Indian chess body have varied voter lists to elect its office bearers?

Strangely, that is what was put out by the two warring factions in the All India Chess Federation (AICF) -- one led by its President P.R. Venketrama Raja and the other led by its Secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan.

For instance, in the list of the AICF electoral college put out by Raja, the names of Pradip Verma and Dhananjay Kumar have been listed as the voters from the All Jharkhand Chess Association.

On the other hand, the list of voters put out by Chauhan for the All Jharkhand Chess Association mentions Pradip Verma and Neeraj Kumar Mishra.

Incidentally, as per the AICF rules, each state chess association can send only two delegates for the general body and who will also vote in the elections.

Further, only one of them can contest in the election.

In the case of the All Rajaputana Chess Association, Raja has listed P.K. Gupta and Pradip Kumar Choudhuri as the voters whereas Chauhan's list contains the names of Ashok Kumar Bhargava and Rajendra Telli.

Though there are 33 state chess associations affiliated to the AICF, the voter list put out by both the warring parties has left several columns blank. "The list of voters put out by Raja contains the names forwarded by the President of the respective state chess associations.

That is the authentic list, FIDE zone 3.7 President R.M. Dongre, a former

Maharashtra state player and who had a peak rating of 2,245 Elo points, told IANS. According to Dongre, the returning officer will decide on who would vote in the elections if more people come to the general body meeting.

The two groups had put out voter lists as they had called elections on two different dates -- Chauhan on February 9 at Ahmedabad and Raja on February 10 at Chennai.

The Madras High Court, on Tuesday in a case filed by Raja, ordered that the elections will be held on February 10 at Chennai. It will be interesting to see whose vote the Returning Officer would allow if all of them come for voting.

Meanwhile, Chauhan told IANS that he would go on appeal against the court order.