JOIN USMamata backs Sourav Ganguly, requests PM Modi to let him contest ICC elections
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday backed former BCCI President Sourav Ganguly, requesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure that Ganguly be allowed to contest the ICC election.
"Don’t be politically vindictive towards former cricketer and outgoing BCCI president Sourav Ganguly," the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief told the Centre.
“I request the Prime Minister… Please take care that Sourav be allowed to contest the ICC election. He has been deprived,” Banerjee said in Kolkata on Monday.
The chief minister said that Ganguly was being deprived, and it was unclear what his “fault” was, despite the fact that he is known globally, beyond the state’s and the nation’s boundaries. “Everybody knows him, he has worked with everybody and he is a popular figure. Is that why he has been deprived?” Banerjee said, in the context of Ganguly not being able to continue at BCCI for a second term.
Banerjee said that she was “shocked”, and it’s a “bad” and “sad” matter. “So we request the government… don’t take it politically, or vindictively… Take a decision. He is not a political party member. Take a decision of (from the point of view) the cricket,” she requested.
The chief minister pointed out that for reasons unknown, Jay Shah, son of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, has been allowed to continue for another term, but Ganguly was not. "What’s the reason for it, we would like to know," she said. The only way to compensate for the exclusion is to let Ganguly rise to the ICC, she said.
Ganguly, who completed his tenure, had recently said that all tenures come to an end and that he was moving on. Ganguly not getting a second term in West Bengal had stirred a political controversy in the eastern state, with TMC leaders alleging that he was being deprived of the post as he was not in sync with the BJP’s political ambitions in Bengal.