PT Usha Loses IOA Re-Election Bid After Securing Just 40 Votes in SOM Poll

NEW DELHI — PT Usha's grip on the Indian Olympic Association snapped in eleven chaotic days.

The sprint legend tumbled out of contention for a second presidential term after finishing fifth with a dismal 40 votes in a six-woman race for the Sportsperson of Outstanding Merit (SOM) college. Without a seat in that electorate, her presidency was over before the ballot boxes cooled. It was a stunning tactical blindsiding, plotted behind closed doors while India's most decorated track icon was 9,000 kilometres away on official Olympic duties in West Africa.

She never saw the ambush coming.

The Dakar Dash and the 11-Day Revolt

The collapse began on October 29. Usha spent the morning meeting two influential political figures in New Delhi, hunting for blessings and absolute assurances of support for a second term at the helm of the IOA. Confident that her flank was secure, she filed her nomination papers for the SOM election at precisely 7:09 pm that evening. Hours later, she boarded a late-night flight to Dakar for the Youth Olympic Games, taking key administrative staff along.

Her departure opened the floodgates.

With Usha in Senegal, rival factions sprang into motion. Back-channel phone lines buzzed across state capitals. Secret meetings unfolded inside and outside the national capital, accompanied by rapid barrages of encrypted messages. When the nominations deadline closed on October 30, ground beneath her feet had already shifted. By October 31, the publication of the draft list triggered panic in her camp. Opponents inside the IOA had spent four to five months quietly assembling an alliance against her administrative control, but she had brushed off the early warnings.

Usha had initially scheduled her return for November 7. Instead, frantic phone calls from Delhi forced her to cut the diplomatic tour short. Two high-stakes International Olympic Committee engagements anchored her in Dakar until November 2: a breakfast working session with IOC Vice-President Nawal El Moutawakel and four delegates, followed by formal negotiations with IOC President Kirsty Coventry over India’s landmark bid to host the 2036 Olympic Games and the 2038 Asian Games.

Once those meetings concluded, she boarded a flight home on November 3. Touching down in Delhi on the morning of November 4, she raced directly to the IOA headquarters by noon to rally her inner circle. But it was far too late.

The 40-Vote Debacle and Formal Electoral Protests

By the time Usha sat down with her aides on November 4, prospective SOM contenders were withdrawing en masse to consolidate the anti-Usha bloc. Influential figures reached out directly, urging her to step aside and withdraw her nomination to spare herself an embarrassing defeat. She refused.

She placed her faith in the assurances given by her political handlers days earlier. It proved a fatal miscalculation. When the ballot papers were tallied, Usha was routed, scraping together just 40 votes in the six-woman contest to finish fifth. Backers conceded she was caught flat-footed, outmaneuvered by an insurgent campaign that gathered momentum while she was out of the country.

Yet the battle has spilled into the office of the electoral officer. Before the final count, Usha shot off a sharp letter to returning officer Sanjay K Srivastava, directly challenging the inclusion of Rahul Banerjee—brother of female candidate Dola Banerjee—on the final SOM roster. Her petition charged a blatant conflict of interest and demanded to know which official authorised Rahul's inclusion, under which statutory rule, and whether Dola had submitted a formal conflict disclosure.

She followed with four separate formal complaints, alleging systematic subversion of ballot secrecy and violations of the Model Code of Conduct. Usha accused rival factions of demanding that voters furnish proof of their ballots, circulating unauthorized messages invoking the Union Sports Ministry to pressure delegates, and pushing digital campaign slates on WhatsApp run by sitting IOA executive committee members.

Srivastava has issued no official response to her complaints. With the SOM college set and the presidential race moving forward without its incumbent, Indian Olympic administration enters a combustible transition.