BCCI urges Virat Kohli to resign from his ONGC job

What's the story?

Conflict of interest in Indian cricket has been an issue which has troubled the cricketers since long. Indian stalwarts like Sunil Gavaskar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly have been the victims of this and now it is the turn of Virat Kohli and some of his players. According to a report in The Hindustan Times, the BCCI has urged the Indian captain to quit his job from the post of a manager at Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC).

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Players from Delhi have been offered an honorary position at ONGC for years now with the likes of Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag and Ishant Sharma working in some capacity or the other with the public sector firm.

The Supreme Court's Committee of Administrators (COA) has made it clear to the board that no cricketer can hold positions at any government or public sector companies. The reason which the Supreme Court assigned committee has cited is to avoid the conflict of interest issue.

The heart of the matter

Virat Kohli has represented ONGC in numerous local tournaments. Along with the captain, the BCCI has issued a strict warning to the likes of Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara and almost 100 other Indian cricketers who hold some or the other position in any public sector firm. This issue will now be discussed in the next SGM in New Delhi and is expected to be the most controversial topic of the meeting.

A BCCI official was contacted in regard to this issue and he revealed, "Yes it will be tabled (at the next SGM meet) and we will talk about it in detail. Not just players but there are whole lots of other things as well when we deal with conflict of interest."

The official continued by saying that, “The players obviously will be most affected and it will be for the members to decide. We also have the option of referring it back to the Supreme Court as per their recent directions.”

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What's next?

It is yet to be known what sort of impact the scenario will have on Kohli who is leading his team in the ongoing Test series against Sri Lanka.

Author's take

Indian cricketers have always been offered honorary positions in companies such as Railways, ONGC, Air India, HPCL, Indian Oil, FCL, BSNL, Audit and Excise and Income tax office. An issue of the conflict of interest had also arisen during the first season of the Indian Premier League but was sorted when these companies had provided a no objection certificate to their employees.

But the COA has made the rules strict this time around with all the mentioned players now having to resign from their posts before offering them new contracts. This decision might go on to worsen the working relations between the players and the board.