Sports Ministry forms 20-member panel to oversee national sports body polls

The Sports Ministry on Thursday unveiled a 20-member National Sports Election Panel, featuring two former Chief Election Commissioners of India, to oversee the electoral process in national sports bodies.

The formation of the panel was mandated by the National Sports Governance Act that was passed by the Parliament in 2025.

"In exercise of the powers conferred by section 16 of the National Sports Governance Act, 2025 (25 of 2025), read with the National Sports Governance (Removal of Difficulties) Order, 2026, the Central Government hereby notifies ... the members of the National Sports Election Panel for the purpose

of section 16 of the said Act, to act as Electoral Officers for overseeing the conduct of free and fair elections of the National Sports Bodies," stated a gazette notification of the Ministry.

The former CECs, who have been named in the panel, are Achal Kumar Jyoti, whose one-year tenure ended in 2018, and Sunil Arora, who served a longer term from 2018 to 2021.

Former Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey is another senior member of the panel, which was required to have a 20-strong roster. There are three former Deputy Election Commissioners of India in the panel -- Sandeep Saxena, Sudhir Tripathi, and Umesh Sinha.

Major sports bodies that are due to hold elections this year are the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and the All India Football Federation (AIFF) among others.

The NSEP will nominate the Electoral Officer from its roster to oversee the conduct of polls for Executive Committees as well as athletes' commissions in the sports bodies.

The NSEP's roster is to be maintained by the National Sports Board which is yet to take shape and the deadline for applications to positions in it has been extended more than once.

The National Sports Election Panel:

Achal Kumar Joti, Former Chief Election Commissioner of India

Sunil Arora, Former Chief Election Commissioner of India

Anup Chandra Pandey, Former Election Commissioner of India

Alok Kumar, Former State Election Commissioner (Assam)

Chandrashekhar Bhatt, Former State Election Commissioner (Uttarakhand)

Dalip Singh, Former State Election Commissioner (Haryana)

Harish Chandra Joshi, Former State Election Commissioner (Uttarakhand)

Narendra Kumar, Former Election Commissioner (Union Territories)

R. Parasuram, Former State Election Commissioner (Madhya Pradesh)

Rajeev Sharma, Former State Election Commissioner (Haryana)

S K Srivastava, Former State Election Commissioner (Delhi)

Sanjay Prasad, Former State Election Commissioner (Gujarat)

Urvinder Pal Singh Madan, Former State Election Commissioner (Maharashtra)

Varesh Sinha, Former State Election Commissioner (Gujarat)

Sandeep Saxena, Former Deputy Election Commissioner of India

Sudhir Tripathi, Former Deputy Election Commissioner of India

Umesh Sinha, Former Deputy Election Commissioner of India

Ajay V Nayak, Former Chief Electoral Officer (Bihar)

Ranbir Singh, Former Chief Electoral Officer (Delhi)

Umang Narula, Former Chief Electoral Officer (Jammu & Kashmir).

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Bridge Desk. It is published from a syndicated feed)