Rohan Jaitley set to be re-elected as DDCA president

Rohan Jaitley wins re-election as DDCA president, defeating Kirti Azad in closely watched contest.

Rohan Jaitley is set to return for another term as president of the Delhi & District Cricket Association after a seemingly comfortable victory over former India cricketer Kirti Azad in the battle for the top position.

Rohan, the son of the late Arun Jaitley, was elected unopposed to the post of DDCA president in October 2020. He was then re-elected a year later after defeating advocate Vikas Singh by a massive margin. With Azad, a member of the 1983 World Cup-winning team and a Trinamool Congress MP, challenging Rohan this time, the 35-year-old was facing sterner competition in his bid to continue leading the state association.

While the final results were yet to be declared at the time of going to print, Rohan had 1239 votes in comparison to Azad’s 610 after the counting of 1900 votes had been completed. The total number of votes polled in the election was 2463.

The closest battle turned out to be for the post of secretary. It was a three-way fight between Ashok Sharma (part of Rohan’s faction), Sanjay Bhardwaj (in Azad’s group), and Vinod Tihara. Sharma had 688 votes while Tihara was second with 606 votes at the time of writing.

“Right now, the members have seen what we have done over the last three years and it seems like they are going to give us another opportunity to serve them. Having selective criticism with only the intent of contesting elections doesn’t fly. Organisations don’t become good or bad within the preceding 30 days of an election,” Rohan told reporters.