Chatur Bahadur Chand was elected the president of the Cricket Association of Nepal as his faction clean swept the election for the 17-member executive committee of the cricket governing body in Naxal on Saturday.

Chand, the controversial president of the previous committee, secured 44 votes against 15 of Binay Raj Pandey, the former president, out of total 59 votes. In the election held under new statute of CAN, Chand faction's Raj Babu Shrestha was elected vice president, Ashok Nath Pyakurel secretary and Roshan Kumar Singh treasurer.

The election conducted under the supervision of international cricket governing body — International Cricket Council (ICC) — is expected to inject new life to Nepali cricket that has been reeling under ICC suspension since April 2016. The suspension is expected to be lifted by ICC board meeting scheduled for October 12 and 13.

"We reached this stage for the betterment of Nepali cricket after making big sacrifice," said Chand after he was elected. "Now we are in a completely new situation and we need to start from scratch. We will initiate efforts to lift the ban during ICC's next meeting set for October 13," he said.

Chand faction's Shrestha earned 40 votes against 17 of Mingma Dandu Sherpa for the vice presidential post and Pyakurel received 43 against 15 of his opponent Binod Kumar Mainali for the secretary's post. Singh beat Upendra Bhattarai 45-12 in the race of treasurer.

Daud Ansari of Province 2, Rishi Ram Gautam of Gandaki, Prashant Bikram Malla of Province 5, Padam Khadka of Karnali and Bikmra Bista of Sudurpaschim were elected unanimously as members from the respective provinces. Jayanti Bhatta was elected unopposed under the women's quota. Kailash Bista was elected from Province 1 defeating Lakpa Lama 37-21 and Amit Bir Pandey secured 39 votes against 19 of Kailash Pradhan to win the executive member race from Province 3.

Altogether 10 candidates had filed nominations for five members in the open category. Among them, Durga Raj Pandey was elected with highest 42 votes followed by Birendra Bahadur Chand (36), Madhav Kumar Karmacharya (35), Sanjay Raj Singh (34) and Karan Mahotra Chhetri (30). Dhirendra Saud (28), Pawan Kumar Agrawal (20), Naresh Rana (17), Prafulla Baidhya (16) , Jagat Tamata (15) faced defeats in the election of members.

ICC had suspended CAN on April 2016 owing to duel existence of the cricket governing body and government interference in the election. Nepali cricket has long been in crisis after a faction of the previous CAN committee led by Tanka Aangbuhang held its general assembly and subsequently went on to the polls without the support from the National Sports Council (NSC), the country’s top sports governing body. The Council had refused to give legitimacy to the new body under Chand, which was formed on December 15, 2015, following a controversial mid-night election not contested by then CAN president Aangbuhang and his faction.

NSC, in February 2016, formed an ad-hoc committee under Ramesh Silwal which prompted ICC to suspend CAN. Later ICC had formed an advisory committee in 2016 entrusting it with the responsibility of drafting a new statute of the cricket governing body and facilitating in holding a fresh election. The new statute was unanimously approved by CAN in April 2018. ICC had formed the Independent Committee in July last year and tasked it to oversee the elections of districts and provinces under the newly adopted statute. The election process of districts and provinces concluded earlier this month. ICC and NSC had jointly announced the date of election on September 15.