Calcutta: With just five days left for the annual elections, the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) is reeling under one controversy after another. The latest being the nomination of Indranath Dey, the incumbent CAB vice-president.

Dey is the secretary of Howrah Union club, which on Wednesday signed a five-year contract with actor and Indian Cricket League (ICL) stakeholder Mithun Chakraborty’s Royal Bengal Tigers.

According to the BCCI’s directive, no affiliated unit or player can have any association with the banned ICL.

Nobody seemed to have any clue about the exact implications of the issue on Thursday, but most of the incumbent office-bearers agreed that they could have done without the controversy before the elections.

With the ruling group determined to pass the baton on to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), everyone wants to buy some time on the issue.

The ruling group reiterated their stance of looking into the MoU signed between Dey and RBT, before taking a decision. There is very little chance of a directive reaching the CAB before the elections.

“In 2007, we had written to the BCCI asking them whether the ICL players could play for their offices. But no reply has come yet on the issue,” treasurer Tushar Sarkar said on Thursday.

“So there is very little chance of any directive coming from the BCCI before the elections.”

The opposition is, however, mulling whether to write a letter to the BCCI directly, with their complaints. They accused the ruling group of “double standards” on the issue.

“This is not on… They had suspended the cricketers for having links with the ICL, but now things seem to be different. This is a clear case of double standards,” former BCCI joint secretary Goutam Das Gupta said. “We want CAB to expel Howrah Union according to the BCCI directive.”

Meanwhile, the city civil court appointed Justice Santosh Kumar Phoujdar, former judge of the Calcutta high court, as an observer for the CAB poll. Incidentally, Phoujdar also conducted the 2006 elections.

Passing the order, sixth judge of the City Civil Court, Anindita Roy Saraswati, said that the court appointed observer would conduct the entire election process from scrutiny of voters’ list to announcement of the poll results.

The scrutiny of the nominations and the voters’ list would be done on Friday.

The Howrah Union issue might turn out to be a tricky situation for observer Phoujdar, as he will have to conduct the elections according to the CAB constitution, which does not have any directive on the present scenario. Both Dey and the rivals would have the option of moving to court against the CAB in such a situation.