Narinder Batra, R K Anand included in IOA delegation

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) delegation for the crucial meeting with International Olympic Council (IOC) on bringing India back into the Olympic movement, will now include Hockey India general secretary Narinder Batra and Jharkhand Olympic Association president R K Anand.

The meeting that is scheduled to be held in Lausanne, Switzerland on May 15 will feature six delegates from the IOA.

Apart from Batra and Anand,the other members of the delegation are IOA's acting president V K Malhotra, Tarlochan Singh, S Reghunathan and N Ramachandran.

The IOC in a letter today confirmed about Batra and Anand's names being inducted for the meeting.

"The IOC hereby takes note of the composition of your respective delegations as indicated by Mr Deb and by Mr Malhotra, respectively. In addition the IOC has considered the request from a significant number of national sports federations to include also the names of Mr Batra (Hockey) and Mr Anand (Weightlifting)," Jerome Poivey, Head of Institutional Relations and Governance, NOC Relations Department was quoted as saying in the letter.

In fact by the content of the letter, it was clear that IOC was ready to accomodate different points of view on this serious issue after the suspended Abhay Chautala faction had written to the IOC requesting that Batra and Anand's names be included in the Lausanne-bound delegation.

The letter quotes Poivey saying,"In order to give a reasonable opportunity for the different views of the national federations members of the suspended IOA to be expressed and heard, we wish to inform you that the IOC decided to accept these two additional persons and welcome them to join our meeting on 15 May."

The suspended IOA, headed by Abhay Singh Chautala, had on May 3 shot off a letter to the IOC requesting them to consider the seven-member list of delegates sent by them as official for the joint meeting at Lausanne.

The Chautala-led IOA had submitted a list to the IOC in which the names of Batra, Anand and AFI President Adille Sumariwalla figured.

Interestingly, V K Malhotra had, on the same day, finalised a four-member delegation for a meeting with the IOC, which did not include the names of Batra, Anand and Sumariwalla.

The letter by the suspended IOA stated that the names were arrived at as a result of wide consultation and co-ordination amongst the National Sports Federations. (NSFs).

Chautala and secretary-general Lalit Bhanot, who were elected unopposed on December 5 last year, had been not been included in the list.