PT Usha Finishes Fifth in the IOA Election That Shapes the Next President, Explained

PT Usha is still president of the Indian Olympic Association. She is no longer on the obvious path to staying there.

On Monday, 9 November 2026, she finished fifth in the election for four female Sportspersons of Outstanding Merit, the athlete seats that go into the IOA General Assembly. The assembly elects the president and the rest of the Executive Council on 5 December. PTI and Sportstar both put her on 40, behind Anju Bobby George (53), Rani Rampal (50), Dola Banerjee (45) and Saina Nehwal (43).

By early Tuesday, she had called the count a fraud and asked the International Olympic Committee and the Prime Minister to step in. That is her charge. It is not a ruling.

The 60-second version

• The poll: Four female SOM seats. Six women ran. Usha was fifth. Anitha Paul Durai was sixth with six. PTI spells her Anitha. Sportstar spells the first name Anita. The totals otherwise match.
• Who voted: All 80 SOMs on the roll, 40 men and 40 women, in a virtual poll from 9 am to 5 pm, PTI said. Sportstar said each voter ranked four choices. The published figures sum to 237, not 80.
• Why it matters: PTI says a presidential candidate must be an SOM or already a member of the General Assembly. Missing this list leaves the federation-nomination route, which both PTI and Sportstar treat as unlikely.
• She is not out tonight: Neither paper reported a resignation. The presidential poll they both name is 5 December.
• Her allegation: The Tribune, updated at 1:31 am IST on 10 November, quoted her calling the result fraudulent and seeking intervention from the IOC and Narendra Modi.
• The other complaint: Weightlifter Sathish Sivalingam wrote to the electoral officer about an organised effort, and the use of IOA resources, in favour of a candidate who is also the president. He did not name her. That, too, is an allegation.

What Monday's numbers were

PTI, carried by Rediff and updated at 7:13 pm IST, said Usha ended fifth of six. The virtual poll ran from 9 am to 5 pm. Electoral officer Sanjay Kumar Srivastava issued the result. PTI said every one of the 80 SOMs on the roll cast a vote: 40 men and 40 women. The roll for the women's seats was not women-only.

Sportstar, updated at 7:52 pm IST, reported the same order and the same figures, and added the method: each of the 80 listed four choices in order of preference. The four winners had contested as a unified panel, Sportstar wrote.

The six figures are 53, 50, 45, 43, 40 and 6. Added together they come to 237. A one-person, one-ballot split of 80 votes cannot produce that. The stories do not publish the scoring rule that turns a ranked list into those totals, so a headline that reads "53 votes out of 80" is ahead of what the copy actually explains.

On Saturday, the four male seats were filled without a contest. PTI and Sportstar name Gagan Narang, Vijender Singh, Yogeshwar Dutt and Kamlesh Mehta, after a round of withdrawals. PTI called the men's withdrawals "inexplicable circumstances" and listed, among those who pulled out, World Athletics vice-president Adille Sumariwalla, Achanta Sharath Kamal, B. Sai Praneeth, Sathish Sivalingam, Surinder Singh Shokar, Ronjan Sodhi, Mansher Singh and Moraad Ali Khan. Among the women who withdrew, PTI named Ashwini Nachappa, Chekrovolu Swuro, Trupti Murgunde, Neelam Setti Laxmi and Ragina Kiro.

Why fifth place blocks the usual road to president

This was not the presidential ballot. It decides who sits in the room that casts that ballot.

The IOA constitution published on olympic.ind.in, described there as amended up to 2 November 2022, says in Article 10.1 that the people entitled to stand and vote include eight Sportspersons of Outstanding Merit, four men and four women, one vote each, along with national federation representatives, IOC members in India, and two Athletes' Commission representatives. Article 11.1.1 says the Executive Council, president included, is elected from among the eligible members and representatives present. Article 11.1.6 says the General Assembly does that electing.

PTI's shorter version of the same gate: the candidate for president will have to be an SOM or a member of the General Assembly. The 2026 SOM rules on the same site say the eight elected SOMs join the General Assembly, with the same voting rights as other assembly members, subject to the statutes. From those eight, one man and one woman are later elected onto the Executive Council. A seat in the assembly is the eligibility. It is not itself the presidency.

Usha came in through this athlete route in 2022. PTI said she was elected unopposed then as the IOA's first woman president, and described her as 62. The same copy says she is not expected to be one of the Athletics Federation of India's two representatives this time. Sportstar says each national federation nominates two representatives, one of each gender, and that the athletics federation is expected to prefer Sumariwalla and Anju. "Expected" is Sportstar's reporting, not an AFI announcement.

There is a second lock on that side door. PTI quoted a separate notice from Srivastava: each representative shall be a member of the concerned NSF entitled to vote, an Indian citizen, under 70, and a person of good standing. Article 10.4 of the 2022 constitution text already says representatives nominated by a unit must be members of that unit. An outgoing Executive Council member, unnamed, told PTI that a federation nominating Usha would have to be "really brave and courageous", and that her chance of entering the assembly was minimal.

Article 11.1.10 adds the ordinary office-bearer conditions: Indian citizenship, full civil rights, under 70 on election day, and no disqualifying conviction, ethics finding, or framed charges of the kind the constitution specifies. PTI's age of 62 means the age cap is not the hurdle described in these reports. The hurdle they describe is getting onto the assembly at all.

What she says was done to the count

The Tribune's interview, updated at 1:31 am IST on Tuesday, is the first detailed account of her response.

She called the SOM election a big farce and alleged a "big fraud" aimed at pushing her out of the IOA office. She asked both the IOC and Modi to intervene. The quotes The Tribune attributes to her include: "Winning and losing is normal but results have to be fair. I am certain that this (result) is fraudulent." She said she could not finish fifth and should be at the top. She said she knew she had polled over 25 single-preference votes, because those voters called her, and that it was mathematically impossible for Anju to get 53.

She also gave The Tribune her account of how she took the job. She said she agreed in 2022 only after seven days, and only because she thought the Prime Minister wanted her to clean up the mess, after a Rajya Sabha nomination. She said she had spoken to sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya, who indicated nothing, and had met home minister Amit Shah, who said he would speak to the sports minister. She called the result an insult to the Prime Minister's initiative. That whole sequence is her account to the paper. It is not a statement from the Prime Minister's Office, Mandaviya, or Shah.

The Tribune said she has already sent a complaint to the IOC about what she called underhand tactics by the faction opposing her on the executive, and that she questioned Srivastava for failing to act on at least four complaints about code-of-conduct breaches. She shared a WhatsApp message, the paper said, showing Anju, Rani, Dola and Saina campaigning together as the "Bharat Panel". Her complaints, as the paper described them, name executive members Bhupinder Singh Bajwa and Yogeshwar Dutt for soliciting votes, and Badminton Association of India secretary Sanjay Mishra for allegedly forcing athletes to show email acknowledgements so their votes could be checked. She said some voters were told "PMO wants it" or "Sports Minister wants it". Those sentences are allegations by the sitting president. The Tribune article does not report a response from the people named, or any finding that the count was altered.

Dutt is the same athlete elected unopposed on Saturday as a male SOM. That fact and the allegation against him are separate. One is an election result. The other is unadjudicated.

The complaint that points the other way

Monday's paper trail is not only Usha's.

PTI reported that she had already complained to Srivastava that Dola Banerjee broke the model code by a WhatsApp message, from an account bearing Banerjee's name, seeking votes for a "New Bharat Panel" and naming four candidates with ballot serial numbers and roll numbers. "Bharat Panel" is The Tribune's label for the message Usha showed that paper. "New Bharat Panel" is the label in the complaint PTI described. This piece does not merge them into one official name.

Separately, PTI said Commonwealth Games gold medallist Sathish Sivalingam, himself one of the 80 voters, wrote to Srivastava that "an organised effort is underway to influence members of the Electoral Roll in favour of a contesting candidate who is also the President of the Indian Olympic Association" and that IOA resources were being used for it. He did not name Usha. That letter is an allegation aimed at the incumbent's side of the contest. PTI did not report a ruling on it.

The 2026 SOM rules say a complaint about the conduct of the SOM election goes to the electoral officer, whose decision is final and binding, and that a petition to the National Sports Tribunal is limited to an alleged breach of the election bye-laws and must be filed within 30 days of the result. Usha's public ask, in The Tribune, is wider than that clause: she wants the IOC to check the results, and she wants the Prime Minister to intervene. Those are political and Olympic channels. They are not the same thing as a tribunal order.

Who the result leaves in the frame

Sportstar said the four elected women had run as one panel, and that Monday's voting "may well" push Anju Bobby George ahead of Saina Nehwal, whom the paper had seen as a key challenger to Usha. Anju is also an AFI senior vice-president, Sportstar noted. That "may well" is the paper's reading of the numbers, not a declaration of candidacy.

PTI said Gagan Narang, 43, the 2012 Olympic bronze medallist in 10m air rifle, is considered one of the strong contenders for the top job. Sportstar said he is also said to be interested and may throw his hat in. Neither story quoted him announcing a run.

Sportstar added that Usha had been the face of India's 2036 Olympics bid, and that the defeat is likely to bring a power shift in sports administration. "Likely" is Sportstar's judgment. The bid itself is not on Monday's ballot, and no sports ministry statement in these reports says the bid has changed hands.

PTI's closing judgment was that she is set to end her association with the IOA after one four-year term, a term it called mostly tumultuous, with a majority of the Executive Council against her until a patch-up ahead of the 2030 Commonwealth Games and 2036 Olympics bids. That is the wire's summary of the term, not a vote tally from Monday.

What to watch next

1. A federation nomination. The only route these reports leave open is an NSF putting her on the General Assembly as one of its own members. Watch the Athletics Federation of India first, because Sportstar says it is expected to send Sumariwalla and Anju instead.
2. The IOC paper. The Tribune said she has sent a complaint. A public IOC response, or silence, is the next fact.
3. The returning officer and the 30-day window. The 2026 SOM rules put complaints with the electoral officer and allow a narrow tribunal petition within 30 days of the declaration. Whether she uses that path, alongside the IOC letter, is a separate decision.
4. 5 December. The Executive Council election is the vote that actually chooses the next president. Narang, Anju and others are described as possible contenders. Only a filed nomination makes that real.
5. The 2036 file. Sportstar ties her personally to that bid. Any change in who speaks for it will be a government or IOA announcement, not a deduction from fifth place.

Usha lost the election that fills the athlete seats in the room which picks the next president. She has called that loss a fraud. The count she is attacking is the one Srivastava published, and no authority in these reports has set it aside.

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This explainer draws on PTI, as carried by Rediff (updated 7:13 pm IST on 9 November 2026), for the fifth-place finish, the figures 53, 50, 45, 43, 40 and 6, the 9 am to 5 pm virtual poll, the 80-voter roll of 40 men and 40 women, Srivastava's result, the statement that a presidential candidate must be an SOM or a General Assembly member, the 5 December date, the 2022 unopposed election as first woman president, her age of 62, the 1984 400m hurdles reference, the NSF nomination route, the quoted electoral-officer notice, the unnamed Executive Council member, the Saturday unopposed male results, the withdrawal lists, the Dola Banerjee code complaint and the "New Bharat Panel" wording, and Sathish Sivalingam's letter. Sportstar (Uthra Ganesan, updated 7:52 pm IST on 9 November 2026) is the source for the same finishing order, the four-choice preference method, the unified panel, Anju's AFI role, the expectation that AFI will prefer Sumariwalla and Anju, Narang being "said to be" interested, and the 2036-bid observation. The Tribune (Vinayak Padmadeo, updated 1:31 am IST on 10 November 2026) is the source for her fraud allegation, the quotes about fairness, first preferences and mathematical impossibility, the request that the IOC and the Prime Minister intervene, her account of 2022, Mandaviya and Shah, the IOC complaint, the four earlier complaints, the "Bharat Panel" message, and the allegations naming Bajwa, Dutt and Sanjay Mishra. The IOA constitution text cited is the copy on olympic.ind.in described as amended up to 2 November 2022, Articles 10.1, 10.4, 11.1.1, 11.1.6 and 11.1.10. The eight-seat assembly rule, the later election of one male and one female SOM to the Executive Council, and the 30-day National Sports Tribunal limit are from the IOA Sportsperson of Outstanding Merit Rules 2026 PDF on the same site. Her allegations, and Sivalingam's, are allegations. No finding that the count was fraudulent is reported in these sources.