No elections for RWITC managing committee this year
By Usman Rangila
December 16, 2004

The 89th Annual General Meeting of the members of the Royal Western India Turf Club will be held today but no ballots will be cast to elect the committee for the year 2004-2005 because Mr Gautam Lala, last week, withdrew his candidature. With two other current committee members, Messrs Arun Nanda and Vivek Jain already out of the fray due to various reasons, the three new candidates: Messrs P. M. Rungta, Mohan Thakur and Byram Jeejeebhoy will be automatically elected as committee members.

As Mr Lala is known to be very close to Mr Shyam Ruia, it was being rumoured that the latter has prevailed upon the former to stand down for a year and some sort of compromise or arrangement has been reached between their group. But Mr Lala, when asked about the reasons behind his last-minute withdrawal, said, "I have some personal commitments due to which I will not be able to devote much time to the Club hence I’ve decided to give it a miss this year and probably next year I’ll be back." However, the real story is quite different. RWITC chairman Khushroo N. Dhunjibhoy confessed, in his recent interview with this correspondent, that an agreement had been reached among his group according to which Mr Lala withdrew his candidature.

The most important business likely to be conducted after the AGM will be the induction of three club members as Stewards of the Club. It will be of great interest to know the members selected for this job by the new committee as the body of the Stewards of the Club is considered as highly important in the racing administration. 

Five out of the nine members of the committee elected for next year are not inclined to act as Stewards. Messrs Zaveri, Rungta and Thakur take a keen interest in betting on horseracing as such they do not want to participate as Stewards. Mr. Jeejeebhoy being a member of the current Board of Appeal cannot hold a dual post whilst Mr. Dhunjibhoy does not want to police the sport and enjoys watching it from the eyes of an owner.