Issue of affiliation to rowing assns to be solved soon, says COA chief

Deepankar Sharda
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, November 25

The decade-old unsolved mystery of affiliation and disaffiliation of local sports associations by the Chandigarh Olympic Association (COA), which usually surfaces near its elections, took a new turn today when the Rowing Federation of India (RFI) wrote to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and requested it to intervene and direct the COA to include the Chandigarh Rowing Association (CRA) in its coming meeting and elections, if conducted.

Meeting may get postponed: Bazaz

Meetings of the general body and the executive committee of the Chandigarh Olympic Association scheduled for November 27 may get postponed, said Amarinder Singh Bazaz, President, COA. “We will take a final call for calling the meeting or not on Thursday following some unavoidable circumstances,” said Bazaz.

In a very mystification way, the COA has disaffiliated the CRA and affiliated the Rowing and Sweep Association, which has voting rights in the COA. However, the CRA is the one which conducts state championships, sends teams to nationals and its players get gradation certificates from the UT Sports Department.

Office-bearers of both the CRA and the Rowing & Sweep Association claim their stakes on local rowing, and have a number of documents to support their claim.

However, a recent letter by the national rowing body to the IOA president could be game-changer.

President of the RFI Rajlaxmi Singh Deo submitted to the IOA that the CRA was its affiliated unit and should be included in the election process and also in the annual general meeting. The letter was written on November 23. A similar letter was written to the COA President by RFI on November 19. The COA officials have maintained that the CRA became defunct in 2017 and its affiliation was temporary withdrawn. After which, a new body (Rowing and Sweep Association) was awarded affiliation in 2018. However, the CRA maintained that the election process was re-conducted in 2018 and since then they have been managing the championships.

“We will try to solve this problem without any further delay in coming days,” said Amarinder Singh Bazaz, President, COA.