Neta Babu Cricket: Union minister CP Joshi spins against 1986 batch IAS Sanjay Dixit

ROUGH PITCH: IAS officer Sanjay Dixit

Sanjay Dixit, a 1986 batch Rajasthan cadre IAS and passionate cricket lover, is finally giving rooms to Union road transport and highways minister CP Joshi to control Rajasthan cricket. The power struggle between the bureaucrat and the Union minister has continued for quite sometime which only got intensified when supporters of both Joshi and Dixit put locks on Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA) office on July 30, 2011. Only recently, CP Joshi’s faction got the locks opened from the office as Irani Trophy was to begin on October 1, 2011.

Joshi has recently become the chairman of RCA whereas Dixit was first elected as president of RCA on March 1, 2009 and later became its secretary. Joshi faction suspended Dixit, but the IAS officer took the battle to the court.

Only a few months ago, Joshi had a tough time with another IAS officer --- his then secretary RS Gujral. But Gujral, a 1976 batch Haryana cadre IAS, was picked up as revenue secretary by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, and within a short time he was elevated to the post of finance secretary as Gujral became Finmin’s senior-most officer.

But Dixit may not be so lucky in this Neta-Babu power tussle over cricket. According to reports, Dixit, currently serving as state’s irrigation secretary at the rank of a joint secretary of Government of India, may face action from department of personnel and training (DoPT) for alleged violation of service conduct rules by holding a post in Rajasthan Cricket Association without required permission.

Dixit who was once close to former IPL chief Lalit Modi and later famously defeated him for the post of Rajasthan Cricket Association’s president, came into news when he tweeted several uncomfortable questions on Modi in April 2010 when the IPL scam was at its peak. Then minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor had to resign, and there were I-T raids in Modi’s Mumbai office.

Dixit’s then famous tweets said: “Lalit Modi has local modules in Rajasthan and Jaipur. Please supply their names… Raids on IPL is no solution. Raid our friend’s (Modi) associates, catch people who worked for him in the past, who know all about his laundering”.

Interestingly when Dixit was very close to Lalit Modi, they were together nick-named as “Dixit and Fix-it (Modi)” in Rajasthan!

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Now a Rajasthan cadre IAS resorts to Twitter to take on IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi

IN YET another battle being fought in social networking site Twitter, a Rajasthan cadre IAS officer Sanjay Dixit has posed several uncomfortable questions to IPL commissioner Lalit Modi who is already on a sticky wicket after taking on India’s junior external affairs minister Shashi Tharoor who finally resigned from Manmohan Singh's ministry on Sunday. Already, there were I-T raids in Modi’s Mumbai office, and the government agencies may now probe credentials of IPL stakeholders.

Mr Dixit, a 1986 batch IAS officer currently serving in the cadre as irrigation secretary at the level of a joint secretary of Government of India, has asked whether there was any follow-up of Bombay High Court’s direction to BCCI to frame rules to keep people involved in drugs out, apparently taking a potshot at the cricket czar who as a student in US was convicted in charge of drugs trafficking.

The IAS officer who was once close to Mr Modi and later famously defeated him for the post of Rajasthan Cricket Association’s (RCA) president, has raised questions about the stake of Modi’s relatives in at least two IPL teams and his connections with former BJP chief minister Vasundhara Raje, which earned him the tag of Rajasthan”s “super-chief minister”.

Mr Dixit further claimed that “Lalit Modi has local modules in Rajasthan and Jaipur. Please supply their names. Hint: politicians, journalists, IT officers…”. He further Tweets, “Raids on IPL is no solution. Raid our friend’s (Modi) associates, catch people who worked for him in the past, who know all about his laundering”.

Mr Dixit, who was a marine engineer before joining IAS, is now an honorary secretary of Rajasthan Cricket Association. He was once so close to Mr Modi that they together was nick-named as “Dixit and Fix-it (Modi)” in Rajasthan, according to some local media.