Cuttack, Aug. 3: The battle lines may have been drawn for the Orissa Cricket Association (OCA) elections on August 17 after final scrutiny of the nomination papers on Saturday, but former Congress MP Ranjib Biswal is poised to win the post of president virtually without any contest.

Former junior India cricket team skipper Biswal, now a national selector, is seeking re-election this year. In 2004, he defeated former Congress parliamentarian Soumya Ranjan Patnaik. This year, he is pitted against Pradip Chauhan, a former treasurer of OCA.

“There is no contest. It’s just a face-saving attempt by the former treasurer who has been trying to foment a battle for power over the past few years with the help of a minuscule section of the current office-bearers,” said a cross-section of OCA council members.

Chauhan, a small-time hotelier, runs the Union Sporting Club. The city-based club had authorised the name of BJD Rajya Sabha MP Pyari Mohan Mohapatra as a voter for this year’s election. This had triggered speculations last month that Chauhan had managed to rope in the BJD strongman to throw his hat into the ring for the OCA president’s post.

Mohapatra, however, had immediately come out with a clarification in the media. Though he had initially thought to enter the fray, he dropped the idea keeping in view of his commitment to party work for the elections ahead, he said in the statement.

The OCA has 147 voters from 33 district associations, different Cuttack-based clubs and other sporting units across the state.

OCA secretary Ashirbad Behera, on the other hand, is also likely to make a cakewalk with lone candidate Ananda Chandra Nayak in the fray for the post. Nayak, from Sundergarh, is being seen as a “weak candidate”. Behera, the secretary of Cuttack District Athletics Association, was elected OCA secretary for the first time in 2000. He was elected uncontested in 2004.

OCA sources said 19 candidates are on the fray for the eight vice-president’s posts and eight for three joint secretary’s posts.