NEW DELHI: The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) Electoral Officer (RO) Sanjay K. Srivastava has released the draft list of nominations for the 2026 elections of Sportspersons of Outstanding Merit (SOMs), featuring 27 candidates, including several prominent names from Indian sport.The list, issued by the Office of the Electoral Officer on Saturday, includes 15 male and 12 female candidates. The SOM elections are scheduled to take place on November 9.Olympic medallists and established sporting figures feature among the candidates named in the document, including current IOA president PT Usha, Gagan Narang, Yogeshwar Dutt, Vijender Singh, Dola Banerjee and Anju Bobby George.The male candidates who have gone through from the previous roster of 40 names features Mansher Singh, Surinder Singh Shokar, Gagan Narang, Moraad Ali Khan, Kamlesh Mehta, Sathish Kumar Sivalingam, Yogeshwar Dutt, Ronjan Sodhi, B Sai Praneeth, Sardar Singh, Sharath Kamal Achanta, B Sumeeth Reddy, Vijender Singh, Adille Sumariwalla and Om Prakash Singh Karhana.The female candidates are Dola Banerjee, Ashwini Nachappa, Chekrovolu Swuro, Neelam Setti Laxmi, PT Usha, Rani, Ragina Kiro, Saina Nehwal, Trupti Murgunde, Anitha Paul Durai, Anju Bobby George and Sunith Singh.The nomination instructions issued earlier could result in some nominations being deemed invalid. Each person on the SOM roster was required to propose or second only one candidate per gender category. If two nominations shared a proposer or seconder, the later one is “deemed rejected”. The draft list shows that rule broken twice in the men’s category.
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Shivendra Singh, No. 22 on the men’s roster, seconds both Surinder Singh Shokar and Sardar Singh. Saina Nehwal, No. 1 on the women’s roster, proposes Sai Praneeth and seconds Sumeeth Reddy. Both are men’s nominations. Unless the Electoral Officer reads the rule differently at scrutiny, one nomination in each pair should fall.The list also shows how tightly the field has organised itself. Mutual backing is not against the rules. Mansher Singh and Moraad Ali Khan proposed each other. Saina, Sai Praneeth and Sumeeth Reddy form a closed triangle, each proposing or seconding the other two. PT Usha seconds Kamlesh Mehta and proposes Ashwini Nachappa, while Ronjan Sodhi and Mehta propose each other. Gagan Narang, Yogeshwar Dutt, Vijender Singh and Dola Banerjee back one another in a similar ring.Objections and scrutiny come next, before the final list of contesting candidates and the 9 November vote.
