Manohar latest favourite to head BCCI

Shashank Manohar has emerged as the latest favourite to be the next BCCI president, a position he vacated only four years ago, after receiving the endorsement of the powerful Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political outfit that not only runs the federal government in India but also has a wider say in the running of the Indian cricket board. Sharad Pawar, Manohar's mentor and predecessor as BCCI president, is understood to have pulled out of the reckoning and told his supporters to back Manohar.

On his part, Manohar declined to divulge details of his meeting with Arun Jaitley, the federal finance minister and former Delhi association chief, which he termed as a "private conversation". He also said he would wait for his group's opinion before making up his mind.

However, he acknowledged that he met Jaitley on Thursday evening in Delhi. Also present at the meeting were BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur, also the head of the BJP's youth wing, and Ajay Shirke, former BCCI treasurer and current president of the Maharashtra Cricket Association.

A BCCI official, speaking off the record, said a formal announcement was likely by the BJP camp soon to make public that Manohar was their "unanimous choice" candidate to stand for the elections for the president's post necessitated by Jagmohan Dalmiya's death on September 20.

This fresh development also means N Srinivasan, the current ICC chairman, is likely to be an isolated figure within the BCCI with the BJP clearly wanting to maintain a distance from him given his recent legal issues. Srinivasan had met Pawar in Nagpur on Wednesday evening and assured him support from his camp. Pawar did not commit to any deal, but informed his supporters who, as reported on Friday, were a disgruntled lot.

At the Delhi meeting, called by him, Jaitley made it clear that the BJP was willing to support Manohar but not Pawar. The other possibility was Rajiv Shukla, the IPL chairman, who has expressed his desire to fight the elections. Shukla, however, did not have adequate support. Manohar and the rest asked Jaitley himself to stand for the top job in BCCI, but he refused and made clear his preference for Manohar.

According to the BCCI official, till Friday Pawar was banking on the 18 votes he felt he was assured - 12 from the Srinivasan camp and six from his own group of supporters. But with the key members of his own camp - including Maharashtra, Saurashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Vidarbha - not in favour of Srinivasan, the official said, Pawar realised he was standing on weaker ground. The BJP's antipathy towards Srinivasan was also made this clear to him.

If Manohar does indeed step into the ring as candidate, all aspirants from the East Zone will now have to retreat. According to the BCCI's rotation policy it is the turn of the East to have the first say in nominating a name for the interim president's position, whose tenure will end in 2017. Immediately after Dalmiya's death, majority of the six members of the East Zone had stated that they did not want an outsider and would work towards picking one of their own. But that seems highly unlikely now.