Deshmukh defeats Vengsarkar, becomes Mumbai Cricket Association chief

Mumbai: Vilasrao Deshmukh, the union minister for science and technology, on Friday became the new president of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA), defeating former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar in a highly-publicised contest.

Deshmukh, a former Maharashtra chief minister, defeated Vengsarkar by a margin of 45 votes in a straight contest.

A vice-president in the outgoing MCA executive committee headed by union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, Deshmukh polled 181 votes to Vengsarkar's 136 to win the biennial election.

Deshmukh thus became the third former chief minister after Manohar Joshi (1992-2001) and Pawar (2001-2011) to become the MCA chief.

Pawar's group supported Deshmukh after the agriculture minister was unable to contest as he has changed his permanent residence from Mumbai to his native Baramati and the MCA constitution has a clause that stipulates the candidates be permanent residents of the megapolis.

Prof Ratnakar Shetty and Ravi Sawant from Pawar's group were elected vice-president and treasurer while D. Y. Patil Sports Academy's chairman Vijay Patil, who contested as an independent, became the second vice-president.

The two new joint secretaries, Dr P.V. Shetty and Nitin Dalal, are also from the Pawar panel.