The Sports Secretary election was first held on the 17th of January, with Aditya Patil the sole applicant for the post. The 24 team captains were unable to reach a consensus with Patil tying 12-12 with NOTA. The deadlock was broken by the CoSSAc who ruled in favour of NOTA. A by-election was conducted three days later, with two new candidates, Mayank Kulkarni and Abhijit Kumar, standing for the post, and Patil re-contesting. The captains’ votes were split across the board with Abhijit securing 11 votes, Mayank 7, and Patil 6. Another round of voting with the top two candidates was conducted in which Abhijit and Mayank secured 12 votes each, leading to another tie. Once again it came upon the CoSSAc to resolve the deadlock, with Mayank Kulkarni finally emerging victorious.
The Sports Secretary election has typically been a quiet affair that a non-sportsperson would not pay heed to. However, this year’s election has turned newsworthy by being marred with controversies. There have been allegations of collusion, significant departure from precedents, a necessity for a by-election, and multiple instances of dramatic ties which have necessitated the involvement of the CoSSAc. The following article presents an in-depth analysis of all these issues.
Sports Union Constitution
The Sports Union Constitution is the document meant to outline the election procedure, the roles of the Sports Secretary, the Sports Union Council, and the Sports Financial Committee among other things. For a document meant to guide the committee in charge of all sporting related activities on campus (including BOSM), there are numerous ambiguities and flaws in critical sections.
Most importantly, the election procedure detailed by the Constitution is not comprehensive and does not cover all eventualities. The Constitution has provisions only for two candidates and does not detail the procedure in the event of a single candidate or more than two candidates contesting.
The procedure also contradicts itself, stating that a call for nominations should be made at the end of the odd semester at one place, and at the beginning of the even semester in another. While the election has traditionally been overseen by the SFC, this role is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution.
The electorate itself comprises of 24 captains from the various sports teams. However, the Constitution does not specify the tenure of the captain voting, allowing for the possibility of newly selected captains voting alongside captains at the end of their tenure.
The ex-Sports Secretary, Surakshit Soni, and the SFC both agreed that there were issues in the Constitution, and that it needs to be amended. The amendment procedure, however, is laughably impractical, as it requires at least two-thirds of the entire student body to participate in the voting procedure, and at least two-thirds of the voting members to vote in favour of it. According to Surakshit, in the past, amendments have been passed through SWD without the GBM voting on it.
Apart from regular amendment procedure, the Constitution allows for a periodic review to take place every three years. According to SFC, a review was scheduled to take place last year, but it wasn’t carried out. Unlike regular amendments, these do not require the entire student body to vote and are instead ratified by the Sports Union Council.
The Sports Union Council, meant to be the “supreme governing body of the Sports Union”, has an ambiguous composition. It is unclear whether the captains are included in the body or not, as the document quite literally puts a question mark next to their participation.
One of the most troubling facts about this entire affair is that a document so integral to the functioning of the Sports Council is treated frivolously. Year after year, questions about these discrepancies are raised in the amphitheatre debate, and these concerns are simply disregarded. Furthermore, there is no publicly available copy of the document.
Constitutionally, the eligibility criteria of contesting for the post of Sports Secretary require a candidate to have previously participated in three BOSMs, and to have held the post of either captain or JSS. Last semester, due to a lack of applicants in the first call for nominations, the prerequisite of being an ex-captain or ex-JSS was relaxed. In the second call for nominations, Patil was the only candidate who filed his nomination. Due to the proximity of the comprehensive exams, the election was shifted to the even semester.
The 24 team captains were given a choice between Aditya Patil and NOTA resulting in a tie which was resolved by the CoSSAc. While the final vote count wasn’t revealed, the CoSSAc decided in favour of NOTA.
The selection of a candidate is influenced by the points put forward by them in their manifesto, as well as their performance in the amphitheatre debate. As the electorate consists of the 24 captains—and in the case of a tie, the CoSSAcns—the Constitution states that the entire electorate must attend the debate. This check was not conducted by the SFC, who failed to note that at least one member of the CoSSAc was absent.*
*The SFC later clarified that the CoSSAcn had informed them prior to the amphitheatre debate, and they were aware of his absence.
Due to the shift of the election to the even semester, three of the CoSSAcns were not on campus. However, their votes were still taken into consideration over text messages despite their absence in the amphitheatre debate. One of the CoSSAcns abstained from voting.
According to the SFC, voting over text was allowed as the manifestos had been shared with all the CoSSAcns beforehand, and any questions they may have regarding the manifestos or the candidates could be clarified via on-campus CoSSAcns.
The SFC claimed that there was no other alternative to the telephonic voting, as it would have been unfair to let a select few of the CoSSAc vote for the new Sports Secretary. As to why a video recording of the amphitheatre debate had not been provided to the off-campus electorate to enable them in making a more informed decision, the SFC had no comment.
The SFC considered that “imposing” a Sports Secretary on the Sports Union was not democratic, and that the electorate must be given the choice to make the right decision. This presented the possibility of a by-election, which was made clear to the electorate. However, as there is no constitutional provision for the same, the by-election procedure and the eligibility criteria were left unclear.
Due to the relaxation of the eligibility criteria, two new candidates—Mayank Kulkarni and Abhijit Kumar—along with Aditya Patil were allowed to contest the election. This presented another constitutionally ambiguous situation as no provision exists for an election with more than two candidates.
As a result, the SFC created a procedure from scratch. An absolute majority would be required to win the post, failing which the top two candidates would contest in a regular election, eliminating the candidate with the lowest votes. This process was informed to the candidates and the electorate a few hours prior to the election.
The votes of the captains were split—11 for Abhijit, 7 for Mayank, and 6 for Patil—leading to the elimination of Patil and a standard election was contested between Abhijit and Mayank. The second round was a tie again, and eventually the CoSSAc voted to elect Mayank the new Sports Secretary.
According to the SFC, when the procedure was announced, there were no objections made, and hence, it was not deemed necessary to make any changes. It must, however, be noted that the SFC acknowledged that this procedure was not vetted by the Institute prior to the election.
There are multiple discrepancies and doubts regarding the formulation and execution of this procedure.
While the SFC claimed that an election of three candidates was unprecedented, a similar situation had arisen in the election for the 2015 Sports Secretary. Shambhavi Mehrotra, the winning Sports Secretary from the election in question, confirmed that there were three candidates, and relative majority had been enforced. Additionally, NOTA had also been offered, which was notably missing as a choice from the second round of the 2019 by-election.
The rationale presented by the SFC on enforcing an absolute majority was that it would be unfair to impose a Sports Secretary onto a set of captains that did not support him/her, and after running the numbers, they found that the small size of the electorate might allow a candidate to win with a very slim lead.
However, this raises a question as to why NOTA was not offered as an option in the second round of the by-election where Mayank and Abhijit were the candidates left in the fray. The SFC claimed that this was done to introduce an element of practicality into the election, as a definitive result was required. SFC said, ‘The ideology behind NOTA not being allowed in the second round was that NOTA was a candidate in the first round, and if NOTA is not part of the top two candidates then it should not be voted for in the second round.’ It is apparent though, that NOTA changes meaning with the candidature – it means no-confidence in three candidates from the first round, and two from the second round.
This forced the captains who had voted for the eliminated captain to choose between either of Mayank and Abhijit, introducing the possibility of imposing a Sports Secretary on the Sports Union, indicating the procedure proposed was not comprehensive in covering all possible scenarios.
Another discrepancy was the change of the electorate between the two elections. The squash captain at the end of his tenure cast his vote for the first election while the newly elected squash captain cast his vote for the second. When asked why the electorate was not consistent, the SFC chalked it up to an ambiguity in the Constitution, which merely states that “the current captain” is responsible for the vote, irrespective of his/her tenure.
According to the SFC, the electorate change had no effect on the outcome as the captain was merely a representative of the team’s ideologies and thus, who represented these ideologies was immaterial. When pointed out that the ideologies of the team might have shifted between the tenure of the captains, the SFC decided that maybe the composition of the electorate was a point that needed to be looked into.
Post-election, the losing candidates cited displeasure at the mismanagement, with one of them alleging the possibility of collusion between the CoSSAc and the winning candidate. The Constitution has no provisions for such an offence and does not define in formal terms what collusion is. The consequences for a flagrant violation have been mentioned—removal from office—but what constitutes a flagrant violation is, like many other critical clarifications, missing.
As there are no legal specifications, the definition of what might constitute collusion is inherently subjective. Surakshit Soni, when asked about what crosses the line from an ethical standpoint, considered the CoSSAc aiding any candidate in ideation of manifestos and participating in campaigning, among other things, as possible examples of collusion.
Abhijit Kumar, one of the losing candidates, alleged that from the information he had gathered, the CoSSAc had aided Mayank Kulkarni in ideation of his manifesto, participated in his campaigning, and had provided him with insights regarding the election procedure. The SFC claimed that they had not been informed of any such allegations.
Furthermore, Abhijit alleged that the election procedure was specifically formulated to prevent him from winning the elections. In event of a relative majority, he would have won by a considerable margin. The SFC’s reasoning for introducing an absolute majority was to ensure that the Sports Secretary would have the support of the team captains. They stated that had this rule not been imposed, it might have allowed for a candidate with 7 votes (less than 30% of the electorate) to have won. However, by not offering NOTA in the second round of the by-election, the result was that the candidate with 7 votes in the first round won and the candidate with 11 votes lost. Again, it must be noted that the SFC acknowledged that this procedure had not been vetted by the Institute.
The winning candidate, Mayank Kulkarni, denied any wrongdoing in the elections, and claimed that these allegations were false. He agreed that a candidate, if found colluding with the CoSSAc, should be debarred from contesting the election.
The allegations of collusion, whether true or false, bring up a point regarding the role of the CoSSAc in the election – why is the governing body of BOSM consulted in the selection of the in-charge of all sporting activities on campus? Surakshit reasoned that as BOSM is one of the biggest responsibilities of the Sports Secretary, it is understandable that they have a say in the decision. Furthermore, according to SFC, the CoSSAc is involved in sporting activities extending beyond BOSM, such as iBOSM.
In summary, the drama surrounding the events of the Sports Secretary election has brought to light severe shortcomings in the Sports Union Constitution and evident inefficiencies in the election procedure. Such has been the degree of mismanagement that the two losing candidates have raised serious concerns about the formulation and execution of the un-vetted procedures. One hopes that this episode will become the trigger in bringing about significant changes in the Constitution and that the constitutional amendments that will hopefully follow will incorporate safeguards against possibilities of malpractice.
While the amendments will solve a long-term problem, a more pressing issue remains. With all these inadequacies in the Constitution and election procedure, the validity of the elections has been called into question. One is forced to wonder if a re-election is mandated.