Newsmaker | Indian football chief again in poll fray for BJP: Who is Kalyan Chaubey?

On the eve of the All India Football Federation (AIFF) elections in September 2022, Bhaichung Bhutia who aspired to be the president was asked to describe the administrative and decision-making skills of his rival Kalyan Chaubey. Not willing to run down his former India teammate, Bhutia called him a “sweet guy, nice person” but did not rate his rival’s qualities.

The next morning, Chaubey, a former goalkeeper, scored the biggest goal of his career at the expense of one of India’s fiercest strikers. Bagging 33 of the 34 votes polled, he replaced Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Praful Patel as AIFF president. Until then, Chaubey was just another BJP member who contested and lost an Assembly election. However, since his election as AIFF chief, the 47-year-old former Mohun Bagan and East Bengal shot-stopper has shown the deftness of a seasoned player to emerge as a key playmaker in Indian sport given that he is also the joint secretary of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA).

On Monday, Chaubey was named the BJP’s candidate for the July 10 Assembly bypoll in north Kolkata’s Maniktala constituency. Chaubey who joined the BJP in 2015 lost the 2019 Lok Sabha elections to Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra in Krishnanagar. In 2021, he contested the Assembly elections from Maniktala, losing to former Bengal minister Sadhan Pandey of the TMC. He challenged the result in the Calcutta High Court, alleging irregularities and demanding a recount of votes. As a result of the petition, a bypoll could not be held in Maniktala even after Pandey’s death in February 2022. Chaubey withdrew the petition in April, paving the way for the bypoll to be held.

The bypolls in Maniktala, Raiganj (Uttar Dinajpur district), Ranaghat Dakshin