Amitabh Choudhary has refused to sign the appointment letter of BCCI General Manager (Marketing) Priya Gupta.
BCCI acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary has raised objections to the appointment of the Board’s new General Manager (Marketing) Priya Gupta. Among other reasons, he has also cited a 2014 article written by Gupta on Bollywood star Deepika Padukone.
Choudhary, in an email to BCCI CEO Rahul Johri, and copied to the Committee of Administrators (CoA) and other BCCI officials have also mentioned another article that described Gupta’s take on the actress as 'slut-shaming Deepika Padukone.'
Choudhary has refused to sign the appointment letter of Gupta. Chaudhary also questioned Gupta’s lack of experience in handling such a high-profile job.
Choudhary wrote: “A simple search on the internet, revealed the following stories mentioning the candidate selected for the post we are presently concerned with, regarding an article that the person authored, the content of which is for everyone to see.”
It refers to the controversy that had started after The Times of India had tweeted a Deepika Padukone video with the caption: “OMG! Deepika Padukone’s cleavage show”. To this, Deepika had responded with: “YES! I am a Woman. I have breasts AND a cleavage! You got a problem!!??”.
Gupta, who was working with The Times of India at that time, has written an article defending the newspaper. She wrote: “Deepika, just for the record, we do not zoom into a woman’s vagina or show her nipples… What about all the times, and there have been many, when you have flaunted your body off screen — while dancing on stage, posing for magazine covers, or doing photo ops at movie promotional functions? What ‘role’ do you play there? So why the hypocrisy?”
Choudhary has also mentioned another article that described Gupta’s take on the actress as 'slut-shaming Deepika Padukone.' The article slammed Gupta's article for "a time tested, primitive defence, enthusiastically endorsed by the patriarchal frame-work of our society: slut-shame a woman to silence her."
Choudhary even sent an email to CEO Rahul Johri in which he reiterated that this particular position was not even recommended by the Justice Lodha panel.
The way things stand now and as per directions issued last week by Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (COA), either Johri or general manger (cricket operations) Saba Karim will now have to do the formalities of signing on the recruitment letter of Gupta.
To drive home the point, Choudhary mentioned Lodha panel recommendations, stating: “There would be a, maximum of six managers to assist the CEO, who would have expertise primarily in the streams of operations, finance, technical, compliance (legal), human resources and media.”
Choudhary explained that “the need for marketing manager in an institution like BCCI was not felt to be of primary concern even by the Hon’ble Justice Lodha Committee”.
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