The 221-year-old Calcutta Cricket & Football Club, better known as CC&FC, had its first full election ever two days ago, but the results lie locked in the pool pub on the premises.

The incidents leading up to this dramatic step can make poll-hardened politicians jealous. Three senior IAS officers, who had been deputed “scrutineers”, refused to continue to count the ballots after members of one faction barged into the pool pub where the exercise was in progress around 1.15am on Thursday.

Sources said those who stormed into the room included two elderly past presidents. The altercation with the scrutineers that followed ended around 2am with a senior club official sealing the room. “It has remained sealed since with members of both factions guarding it to ensure the other camp cannot break in and manipulate the results,” a senior member said.

The Gurusaday Road club went to the polls on Wednesday evening to elect a president, vice-president, a nine-member general committee and a six-member balloting committee. Voting started around 8pm after the annual general meeting and counting began around 9.30pm.

Naresh Ojha is the incumbent president and Subrata ‘Babul’ Das his challenger.

“One of the young observers from Das’s side got into an argument with a scrutineer who objected to his presence inside the counting enclosure,” said a senior club official.

Observers were allowed in the counting room, but not inside the enclosure, reserved for the scrutineers. “When the scrutineers asked the observer, ‘what are you doing here?’ he shot back, ‘who are you?’ and then he was told to leave. After a few minutes, past presidents Utpal Ganguly (IFA secretary) and Aurobindo Bose, along with a few others, gatecrashed into the room.

The three scrutineers were Dipak Rudra, former chairman and managing director of UCO Bank, Sanjay Thade, who had served as the secretary to Pranab Mukherjee when he was a Union minister, and Kamal Nath, also a minister at the Centre, and Chandan Sinha, the secretary to governor M.K. Narayanan. The election officer was Gautam Sen, who has “conducted elections at various city clubs”. There were four observers from Babul Das’s side and three from the “club panel”.

Rudra, sources said, felt humiliated and all the three scrutineers decided to leave the club around 1.35am on Thursday. “I am on election duty and I will not talk,” Rudra said on Friday night.

Following the fiasco that many members are describing as the “saddest day in the history of the club”, everything has been sealed. “I have never seen something like this happen at the club. There is ugliness and tension building up and, as a member, I feel disgusted. All we want is that tradition should prevail,” a young member said.

The half an hour between the scrutineer’s exit and the sealing of the room could become a contentious issue. If the ballot boxes were left unattended during this time, the club may have to order a repoll. This is a possibility neither side will publicly admit, but may become reality if legal advice so suggests.

“The counting was stopped as soon as the scrutineers left because we weren’t sure if it was legally correct to continue,” a club official said.

The pub was sealed and the computers locked in the presence of the election officer, observers from both sides and the candidates for president.

The club might present the situation before a panel of past presidents, senior members and legal experts to ratify the validity of the historic elections.

“We are awaiting the scrutineer’s report. Then we will call all the candidates and decide a date for the completion of the counting. It is most likely to happen by Tuesday-Wednesday,” an official said on Friday.

Deepankar Nandi, the club’s CEO, added: “It is a matter of the club and we will sort it out.”

A notice put up by the election officer at the Black Dog bar, changing room and the main notice board says: “Due to some unbecoming, acrimonious incidents, the counting had to be suspended. The pool pub where the counting was in progress… has been sealed.”