NEW DELHI: A stung Bcci president CK Khanna, who was accused of not pushing the Lodha committee’s administrative reforms during two SGMs, launched a counter-attack against acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary and termed the allegations as “ludicrous”.

In a strongly worded letter addressed to Choudhary, Khanna blasted the former Jharkhand cricket boss for misleading the board members. “I must point out that, while you attempted to falsely portray that you were the only one for reforms while the others were against it. We attempted to get a consensus of the members for carrying out hon’ble Justice Lodha Reforms and incompliance with the orders pass by the hon’ble Supreme Court. You also attempted to portray an incorrect representation of the Minutes of the meeting of the Special Committee,” Khanna wrote in his email.

He then went on to explain on how Choudhary very conveniently left out the BCCI president from the special committee which was formed to weigh the pros and cons of the Lodha reforms. “Moreover, leave alone the fact that you chose not to include me in the Special Committee to identify the areas of difficulty but you had even constituted the Special Committee unilaterally against the directions of the General Body where it had been decided that you and the Honorary Treasurer would jointly constitute the committee. If a decision is required to be taken by a group of people, mutual trust becomes very valuable commodity, whether it is two people or the entire General Body. Your actions and conduct eroded that trust.

“The members implicitly trust the Hon’ble Court and therefore put their views before the Hon’ble Supreme Court for consideration. Your subsequent recording of the draft Minutes of the SGM was also not in good spirit. Each member and office bearer here is a respected citizen in his/her own right. Dismissing them and being non-communicative with office bearers doesn’t work well for any organization. As such it would be incorrect to assume that others have not carried out their duties and obligation,” Khanna said.

The acting BCCI president also lambasted Choudhary for not giving updates on ICC meetings and appointment of physios, observers and support staff without his approvals. Thereby, Khanna reminded the BCCI secretary not to transgress the BCCI rule book, which specifies the powers of a president. “You will also recollect that I was not part of the committee constituted to deal with the Kochi matter and in fact Anirudh had been a part of the committee and he had been casually excluded till he pointed it out in a subsequent meeting of the IPL GC.

“You once again (though you had expressed regret earlier) in spite of my communication to both, you and the CEO, have gone ahead and announced the teams selected for the forthcoming series without following the Rules and Regulations of BCCI. Further, you have unilaterally appointed observers and other appointees for the India- New Zealand series. You are expected not to repeat this for the India-Sri Lanka series and follow the past practice and protocol of appointments for the same after obtaining prior approval from me, unless mandated by the COA,” he wrote.

Replying to Choudhary’s claim that Khanna doesn’t take much interest in cricket matters and also responsible for BCCI’s heavy spending on IPL tickets. “It is very easy to lay the idea of the proposal for purchase of IPL tickets at my feet but then it was possibly incorrect of me to expect you to present the facts correctly. This was a proposal that had the backing of the IPL chairman as well and I did not see either you, Shukla Ji or Anirudh Ji objecting to the same. It was also not the case that I was initiating this process, the same has been done many times in the past, in the best interest of the BCCI. Needless to say, even in your tenure as an elected office bearer also the same practice was followed.”

Khanna also refuted Choudhary’s claim by saying that he isn’t the only person who is seeking match tickets. “It is not the case that I am the only person who speaks about passes. There have been occasions that have necessitated my communication about the same. I am glad that you brought the topic of the passes in relation to Apple. You will be mindful of the fact that though you are looking at a potential future partnership with Apple, we currently have a partnership with Oppo and with Vivo!

“I personally do not see any reason for us to oblige the competitors of our partners. I value partnerships be it on behalf of an organization or on my personal behalf. However, like I said earlier, it was your quota and you are free to decide how to distribute the same. If you feel that is best for BCCI, you are free to have your opinion. However, all office bearers have their own rightful opinions of what is in the best interest of the BCCI,” Khanna said in the letter.