National games 2009 will be held in UP: Akhilesh Das

Lucknow, Oct 8 (UNI) Union Minister of State for Steel and Mines Dr Akhilesh Das here today said National games 2009 would be held in Uttar Pradesh.

Mr Das claimed that the state games- which were withdrawn from UP by the Indian Olympic association (IOA) due to enactment of the Sports Act by the UP government- would surely be organised in the state.

The newly elected UPOA body would aprise the state government and the infrastructure for the smooth conduction would be completed accordingly.

According to the Olympic charter, those state units would be barred from the International Olympic Federation, which were governed by the government.

Briefing mediapersons, he said election of the UPOA was held here today in accordance with the direction of the High court for which the notice was issued on September 5 last.

A rival body headed by UPOA's former president was held at NOIDA which was declared illegal by the newly elected body saying most of the association members listed in their list were present here and were confirming their solidarity with us.

When his attention was drawn towards any observer from Indian Olympic Association (IOA) was present here for the Annual General Meeting (AGM), Mr Das said the IOA was informed about it but they did not send any member.

One of the vice president of the body Prabhat Chaturvedi said most of the district units backed today's meeting and officials of the 19 out of 39 associations were present here.

The newly elected members are- Dr Akhilesh Das (President), Ranjit Singh Juedo (Ssr vice president), Sanjay Garg, Prabhat Chaturvedi, Kunwar Fateh Bahadur, Harbhajan Singh, Brig. V K Ghai, Dr Anil Agarwal, C K Sharma, Shyam Singh Yadav, Dr Kripal Singh, K N Kapoor (all vice presidents).

Anandeshwar Pandey (Secretary General), Dr Vijay Sinha (treasurer), P K Srivastava (Sr Jt Secretary), J P Agarwal, P K Mishra, Arun Banerjee, Sahdeo Yadav, C P Tewatia, Bhupendra Shahi (Jt Secretaries).

UNI KN ATI SB DB2114