Kalikesh Narayan Singh Dev has been elected as the President of the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI). In this election, he defeated VK Dhal by 36-21. The post of President of the National Rifle Association of India has been vacant since last year. In such a situation, the former MP from Odisha was in charge of the day-to-day operations of NRAI. Raninder Singh resigned from the post of President last year.
Last year, the sports ministry issued a directive that no official of a national sports federation can hold the post for more than 12 years as per the National Sports Code. After that, Raninder Singh resigned. He completed 12 years on December 29, 2022.
Kalikesh was grateful after being elected as NRAI
After Raninder resigned in April last year, Senior Vice President Kalikesh was looking after the affairs of NRAI. Under his leadership, India won three medals in shooting at the Paris Olympics. Indian shooters returned empty-handed from the Rio Olympics 2016 and Tokyo Olympics 2020. Kalikesh will remain the Chairman of NRAI till 2025.
He will hold the post for a year when the regular election of NRAI will be due. Kalikesh said, “I am grateful to all the members for turning up to show their support. We intend to take shooting sport forward. My priority would be to ensure new high-performance centers come up.”
