Chief Minister Siddharamaiah has finally approved the Monitoring Committee to oversee racing activities at the Bangalore Turf Club (BTC), paving the way for the sport to resume from today. The Committee was formed on instructions by the High Court after BTC and various parties sought the legal route following non-renewal of racing licence.

Former Chief Secretary B.K. Das has been named the Chairman of the Monitoring Committee that will have M.R. Kamble, T. Jayaprakash, A.B. Shamshuddin and two Stewards of the BTC as members. The Committee, to be called Racing Monitoring Committee (RMC), will oversee racing and other activities for the next two seasons or till BTC’s writ petition against the government stance is disposed of by the High Court,  whichever is earlier.

Racing activities in Bengaluru had come to a complete standstill since the expiry of BTC’s licence on Aug. 31. Since then the BTC and the government have been at loggerheads over the issue with the latter demanding 50 membership seats in the Club. BTC refused to yield and approached the Court which instructed the government to form a Committee to oversee racing activities.

“We are extremely delighted to have been granted permission to run racing activities,” BTC Chairman Harimohan Naidu said. “We’ve been waiting for this day for the last four-and-a-half months. So many people’s livelihood had been affected due to lack of races and we are glad that racing can go ahead now. Despite the future being unclear we had the prospectus and calendar ready. We can’t wait to conduct business,” he said.

Racing will kick off with off-course betting for Mysore Races today (Friday). BTC will hold the Winter Season’s first meeting on Jan. 6 (tomorrow) with the feature event being The New Year Cup. In all, BTC will be conducting 15 racing days for the season with the marquee Bangalore Derby scheduled for Feb. 10 or Feb. 11. “The Derby as of now is scheduled for Feb. 10 which is a Saturday. But we want to stage our Blue Riband meeting on a Sunday. I have held a meeting with Mumbai racing authorities and requested them to conduct racing on Saturday so we can hold the Derby on Sunday,” Harimohan Naidu added.