Young Barabati MLA Debashis Samantaray is all set to be elected uncontested as the president of the newly constituted Football Association of Orissa (FAO). He was found to be the lone candidate for the post when nomination papers were scrutinised at Barabati Stadium, Cuttack today.
Altogether 11 sets of nomination papers were found valid for a total of 31 posts for which elections would be conducted on June 27. Among other candidates, nomination papers of M A Alam, the secretary in-charge of the dissolved body — Orissa Football Association (OFA) — were found valid for four posts (working president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer).
FAO convenor and Orissa Olympic Association (OOA) secretary Asirbad Behera’s younger son Sanjay Kumar Behera would be the only opponent for Alam for the secretary’s post. Besides the president, candidates for all 16 posts as council members are certain to be elected uncontested. Though the last date of withdrawal of nominations comes up on June 18, observers predict that the panel set by Asirbad Behera, who is also the secretary of state cricket and athletic association, would make a clean sweep of all the posts.
POSTS AND CANDIDATES:
President (1 post): Debashis Samantaray (Radha Raman Club).
Working president (1 post, 3 candidates): M A Alam (Azad Hind Club), Duryodhan Rout (Jajpur District Athletic Association), Aswini Patnaik (Sundargar DAA).
Vice-president (8 posts, 13 candidates): Bijay Das (Cuttack DAA), Bhakta Ballav Das (Club ‘N’ Club), Ramesh Chandra Mallick (SBI), Dr Janardan Dash (Konjhar DAA), Hemant Kumar Das (Mayurbhanj DAA), Prahallad Tripathy (Nabarangpur DAA), Prabhat Aditya Mishra (Bargarh DAA), Subrat Kumar Panda (East Coast Railway), Atanu Kumar Ghosh (Sambalpur DAA), Sarat Behera (Lalbag Club), Nalin Chandra Patel (Sundargarh DAA), Aswini Patnaik, M A Alam.
Secretary (1 post, 2 candidates): Sanjay Kuamr Behera (Rising Students Club), M A Alam.
Joint secretary (3 posts, 4 candidates): Rushinath Sahu (Radhagovind Club), Abhijit Paul (Chand Club), Susant Kumar Das (Western Mahavir Club), Bikram Keshari Mohapatra (Puri DAA).
Treasurer (1 post, 2 candidates): Bikram Keshari Mohapatra, M A Alam.
Council member (16 posts, 16 candidates): Ashok Kumar Parija (Anchalika Sports Association), Sanatan Baral (CRRI), Niranjan Lenka (Chauliaganj Club), Nirad Kumar Swain (Eleven Gun Club), Raghunath Sahu (Jay Mangala Club), Sarat Kumar Behera (Jobra Durga Club), Ganesh Prasad Bhagat (Morning Club), Martin Kujur (SAI), Ram Chandra Sasmal (YVC Group), S K Sinha (Hadibandhu Bidyapitha), Biswajit Patnaik (Police High School), Binsen Sahoo (Ranihat High School), Sansari Sahoo (Railway Settlement High School), Sk Salauddin (Sayed Seminary School), Saraswati Mohanty (Board High School), K K Bal (Stewart School).