Indian volleyball in turmoil as internal politics takes its toll

Indian volleyball in a flux?

It’s almost like an Indian soap opera, replete with sly backroom manoeuvring and relentless one-upmanship. There seems to be no shortage of drama when it comes to the Volleyball Federation of India (VFI). Just when it looked like the feuding federation comprising the faction headed by current president Chaudhary Avadhesh Kumar has ‘got what was needed’ to smoothly run the affairs of the body, the other faction comprising current VFI secretary Ramavtar Jakhar has thrown a serious challenge to Chaudhary’s claims of being the ‘legitimate’ body.

Chaudhary Avadhesh Kumar, of course, has the backing of the Patiala House Court, which recognised its Emergent Executive Committee, presided over by the president, as official. The Kumar-faction got a big boost when the Chennai High Court refused to grant a stay on the Emergent Executive Committee meeting held in Nagpur(Ramavtar Jakhar moved the Chennai High Court to put a stay on the Nagpur meeting).

It is surprising that both Chaudhary Avadhesh Kumar and Ramavtar Jakhar seemed to hit it off when they took charge in 2013 and nothing appeared to go wrong during those two years or so. But the battle lines are now clearly drawn with Jakhar recently calling an Emergent General Body meeting in Chennai and subsequently took a decision to dismiss president Chaudhary Avdhesh Kumar via a unanimous decision of its Special General Body and decided to elect the new chief at a meeting to be convened here on April 11. What’s more, VFI VP Raj Kumar has been appointed the interim VFI chief by the Jakhar faction.

What is interesting to note is that the Jakhar faction claims to have the approval of 23 of the 29 state units for the termination of Kumar. Even more perplexing is the fact that Kumar has claimed that majority of state units is backing him at its recent Nagpur meeting. Kumar was the first one to come on record with the fact that the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) has authorised his faction to run the VFI affairs. Now the Jakhar faction has said that it has the AVC backing as well as both parties termed each other’s recent meetings ‘illegal’.

“It is difficult to see both Kumar and Jakhar come together. Both are claiming majority support of state units. Indian volleyball should not suffer because of this,” says a senior VFI official. Clearly, the Asian Volleyball Confederation has a crucial role to play – they must categorically state which faction is ‘legitimate’ and which is not. Such a move will surely help lessen the uncertainty that is currently gripping the sport.