new delhi the national sports federations nsfs have taken refuge in the narinder batraled indian olympic association ioa to save their skins from the fawning clutches of the stringent national sports code in a closeddoor meeting held at the ioa headquarters here on saturday almost all the representatives of the nsfs pleaded with the ioa management to help protect their autonomy and ensure less government interference also read batra to head committee which will coordinate with government saiioa too felt the need to reach out to the government to curb its hyperactivism over the revised draft of the sports code leading to pils in various courts challenging the election of nsf officebearers citing sports code violationthe huddle led to batra immediately forming an eightmember committee under his own chairmanship to hold talks with the government in order to ensure smooth functioning between the ioa and the ministry apart from batra the committee comprises of r k anand randhir singh rajeev mehta tarlochan singh anandeshwar pandey anil khanna and sudhanshu mittal while the ioa may maintain that the committee will coordinate with the ministry on the sports code and other thorny issues concerning their autonomy saturdays development could result in another standoff between the two bodies with the ministry pushing for the introduction of the revised draft at the earliest and its entiretytheres a general feeling among the nsf presidents and secretary generals who attended the meeting that the working attitude of the ministry and the sports authority of india sai is not very forthcoming towards the nsfs the ministry wants to curtail the nsfs autonomous status through the sports code the members felt that instead of being the two wheels of the same cart we should move together a senior ioa official who was part of the gathering told toithe relations between the ministry and the ioa have of late been rocky recently batra issued a diktat to member units to stay away from all future khelo india meetings since the ioa wasnt involved in the programme as an important stakeholder he had even derided the ministry officials by labeling them as some jokers coming in from mars in its bid to become selfsufficient the ioa even managed to rope in sponsors for the indian contingents trip to the gold coast commonwealth gamesthe ioa meeting was necessitated to discuss the pil challenging the election of himanta biswa sarma as the president of the badminton association of india bai the pil has questioned sarmas election as he is also a health minister in assam however the ioa cleared his appointment and asked him to continue in his post