Foreign Correspondents’ Club crisis gets messier with two expulsions

Two journalists, who were appointed as the interim president and interim general secretary of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia around 10 days ago, have now been expelled from the club. 

The expulsion of Simran Sodhi and Sanjay Kumar is only the latest in a turbulent series of events at the club in Delhi. Newslaundry had earlier detailed how two factions were claiming to be in charge of the club, which has over 500 journalists and photojournalists and is meant to serve as “an important meeting point for far-flung travelling journalists”.

It all began on October 4, when the FCC governing body held an “emergency meeting”, passed a no confidence vote against the incumbent office-bearers, and appointed Sodhi as the interim president and Kumar as the interim general secretary “with immediate effect”.

But the ousted office-bearers had called all the decisions illegal, the meeting a “coup”, and issued showcause notices to Sodhi and Kumar on October 8. 

The two journalists were expelled on October 15 and accused of using “dubious methods” to destabilise the club, as per a letter sent by Venkat Narayan, who the “emergency meet” had tried to remove as the “president”.

According to the letter, two of the eight people part of the emergency meeting on October 4 have claimed they were forced to sign the resolution without being shown the contents of the same. Another member has not renewed his membership, as per the letter, and hence is not eligible to vote, bringing the majority of the meeting that day to a minority. 

The letter claimed that the “so-called meeting” was not valid as per the FCC constitution and bylaws, which mandate that only the president can call a GC meeting. 

The claim by the two about not being informed about the dates and costs of the upcoming IAPC convention to be organised by the club were also called false. The letter also claimed that Sodhi had written to the IAPC general secretary which “causes a lot of damage” to the FCC. 

However, Sodhi and Kumar told Newslaundry that the expulsion letter was “illegal”.

“Venkat is just trying to consolidate his own position with this. It probes our stand that he is running the club like his personal fiefdom and all rules have been thrown out of the window. Further, by renewing the membership of an expelled member Pankaj Yadav, the ex-president has sent out a loud message that he is not bothered about addressing the issues that we raised and wants to cling to his post, whatever the cost to the club,” they said in a statement.

“His reactionary move further alienates foreign journalists and they will never think of returning to the club as long as Venkat and his team are at the helm.”

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