AITA makes constitutional amendment that changes voting pattern

The voting pattern of the All India Tennis Association (AITA) will now fall in line with Sports Code after making some significant constitutional amendments.

This is described as a constitutional amendment because AITA won’t be using the weighted voting method that led them to abolish the Life President and Life Vice President posts as well.

With the post now compliant with Sports Code, the governing body also increased the number of joint secretaries to four from two at its virtual Special General Body Meeting (SGM) on Monday.

Speaking to PTI on the development, AITA secretary general Hironmoy Chatterjee said the body had to follow the government guidelines and the sports code.

While noting that they used to follow the ITF method of voting as the parent body, the government wants to bring uniformity to sports administration, which they said is okay with.

With ITF’s differential voting, the performing states usually get mire of AITA’s votes, meaning associations like MSLTA, KSLTA, and TNTA had more influence in terms of elections.

The weighted voting is a process where different voters are given different weightage. For instance, Grand Slam nations have more votes than other countries in ITF.

Anil Khanna lost the ITF president’s elections due to a weighted voting pattern despite getting support from many nations. With the method, his support didn’t matter because major countries like the USA, Australia, France, and England had more voting value, which he did not get.

In India, Maharashtra Lawn Tennis Association (MSLTA) is the most active association. So, it, therefore, gets 20 votes. The association conducts a lot of international tournaments apart from developmental activities throughout the year.

MSLTA is also the organizer of India’s only ATP 250 event apart from one ATP Challenger, WTA events, and several ITF Futures.

Tamil Nadu Tennis Association (TNTA), Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association (KSLTA) have similar power, as they also conduct ATP Challenger. These are competitions that are crucial for the country’s top players striving to make the top-100 bracket.

Written by: Oladipupo Mojeed