Sourav Ganguly with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

(file photo)

Didi

i.e. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee

has intensified the political war with the BJP on

Dada i.e. Sourav Ganguly.

Mamata Banerjee from her stronghold Bengal on Monday clearly appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and requested him to intervene in this matter.

The point is this:

Sourav Ganguly, 50, has been denied a second term as the boss of the super-powerful BCCI or the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

Mamata Banerjee says it is a "shame" to remove the "Pride of Bengal" from the post.

She says, 'Sourav Ganguly should be allowed to contest for the International Cricket Council (ICC), the world's top governing body for the sport.

To do this, the BCCI will have to support Ganguly.

Mamta said that the BCCI is not going to support her until the Prime Minister intervenes in this matter.

In this case the game is just an excuse.

In the latest proxy fight between Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress and the BJP, Dada has now become the center.

Behind the scenes, it's a juicy mix of cricket, a fight for fame and supremacy.

The widespread belief is that Sourav Ganguly is being punished by the BJP after he rejected a proposal to project himself as the chief ministerial candidate in the Bengal elections last year.

That election was won by Mamata Banerjee brilliantly.

Both Mamata and her party maintain that Sourav Ganguly was granted a three-year extension as the head of the BCCI by the Supreme Court.

His term ends on 23 October.

BCCI treasurer Jay Shah, son of Home Minister Amit Shah, was also given the same extension.

Trinamool party argues that when Jay Shah can continue in office, why not Sourav Ganguly?

The BCCI is currently largely run by the BJP, with close relatives of the party's cabinet ministers occupying the top positions ranging from secretary to IPL chief.

Speaking to me for this column, Derek O'Brien, leader of the TMC Parliamentary Party in the Rajya Sabha, said, "This is a classic case of dynastic privilege, or "familyism".

He said that he had shared a poster on social media, which had comments about Union Home Minister Amit Shah's son Jai Shah and Sports Minister Anurag Thakur's brother Arun Singh Dhumal.

I am Jay Shah, once more becoming @BCCI secretary.

My papa is Union Home Minister @AmitShah



I am Arun Singh Dhumal, new Chairman of IPL.

My elder bhaiya is Union Sports Minister @ianuragthakur



We are examples👇of BJP's ParivarVaad mukt Bharat & @narendramodi's DYNASTS CLUB pic.twitter.com/Lcgp69y6pn

— Derek O'Brien |

'ব্রায়েন (@derekobrienmp) October 12, 2022

Derek O'Brien called Sourav Ganguly a cricket legend and alleged that the BJP has treated him unfairly.

Amit Shah, who has been the senior-most leader of the BJP, has mainly attacked the Trinamool Congress on corruption charges but is now facing the Trinamool Congress's attack on his son's position in the BCCI.

For this column, I did cross-sectional conversations with several leaders from the BJP and the Trinamool Congress.

All of them were unanimous that "things have gotten worse between Sourav Ganguly and the BJP in the recent past."

This is also evident from the timeline as the BCCI had approached the Supreme Court just a month ago, allowing its top office-bearers, including Shah and Ganguly, to extend service for a second term without a mandatory cooling-off period of three years. The removal of only Sourav Ganguly among them is a big event in a very short time.

BJP leaders confirm that Amit Shah saw Sourav Ganguly as a prominent face to fight against Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal or as an icon in the assembly elections but as soon as his BJP There was talk of joining, Sourav Ganguly suffered a heart attack and had to be admitted to the hospital.

Ashok Bhattacharya, a senior CPI(M) leader who has been a friend of Ganguly for a long time, had said at the time that the BJP was pressurizing Ganguly to join the party.

There was certainly stress on him, which had made Dada very ill.

Amit Shah, who arrived in Kolkata recently, had dinner at Sourav Ganguly's house along with other BJP leaders.

Sources close to Sourav Ganguly say that BJP leaders in Bengal had tried to condemn the violence against BJP workers but Ganguly refused to do so, making it clear that he was not interested in the matter. Is.

BJP leaders with Amit Shah version are not used to political stone-pelting and Sourav Ganguly's refusal has angered some of their leaders.

A BJP leader, who has worked in Bengal, said, “It was Ganguly's dream to become the BCCI President and it would never have been fulfilled if the BJP had not supported him.

He played with us till he got a job, but he didn't do anything political.

This has upset our senior leaders."

Sources say the midnight meeting at Amit Shah's Delhi home last week reached a breaking point when former BCCI President N Srinivasan complained about Sourav Ganguly's "non-performance" and criticized him. Serious hearing took place.

Apparently it was in this meeting itself that the decision to remove Sourav Ganguly from the post of BCCI President was taken.

Considering the state of cricket in the country- (the kind of money power it has) it is considered a political base.

Take a look at this list.

Jay Shah is the BCCI Secretary;

Congress Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Shukla will continue as Vice President;

Mumbai BJP chief Ashish Shelar will replace the sports minister's brother as treasurer, who will now lead the IPL;

Assam Cricket Association secretary Devjit Saikia, who is very close to Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, will be the new joint secretary of the BCCI.

BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari said that if Mamata Banerjee is so concerned about Sourav Ganguly, she should make him the brand ambassador of West Bengal, a role played by superstar Shah Rukh Khan over the years.

To this Derek O'Brien responded: "We can have two brand ambassadors. What's the big deal?"


Swati Chaturvedi is a writer and journalist who has worked with The Indian Express, The Statesman and The Hindustan Times.


Disclaimer:

The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author.