NEW DELHI (AFP) - Lalit Modi, the brain behind the highly successful Indian Premier League, was overthrown as president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association on Sunday. Modi, 45, was defeated in a bitterly-contested election to the state body by serving bureaucrat Sanjay Dixit 18-13 in Jaipur, media reports said. But Modi's position as IPL commissioner will not be affected since he remains a member of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) by virtue of being a vice-president with the Punjab Cricket Association. Modi is regarded as one of cricket's most influential figures after drawing the world's top players with lucrative contracts to play in the IPL's inaugural Twenty20 event last year. The Cricinfo website described Modi as "sharp, brash, ruthlessly ambitious, and admired and reviled in equal measure," and said he "will be known as the man who changed the landscape of cricket." Media reports said Modi lost his Rajasthan Cricket Association post because he was considered close to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government which lost the state assembly elections to the Congress party late last year.