Bengalis are using Sourav Ganguly as punching bag. But what’s his steel magnate story anyway

Ganguly’s investments and his politics are his own business and had he not been the cricket icon he is, he wouldn’t face this kind of inquisition. But social media can be unrelenting.

Former cricketer and ex-BCCI president Sourav Ganguly | PTI

It is a challenge to write about national icons. Especially when you are writing about the brickbats coming their way. You end up running the risk of being labelled a brickbatter, too, when you really are not. But I am going to risk it and ask the question that was the rage across the country not very long ago: Why this kolaveri di?

Why so much umbrage in some sections of West Bengal against the state’s living legend, its most iconic figure, a Colossus in every way — Sourav Ganguly?

Ever since ‘Dada’ flew to Madrid and joined West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the efforts to woo foreign investors and announced that he, too, is investing in the state, he has been heaped with both bouquets and brickbats. The criticism may be a trickle, but it’s hard to ignore. Perhaps, for the first time, the former cricketer, who Bengal put on a pedestal and kept there for 21 years ever since he, bare-chested, waved his jersey from the Lord’s Balcony, is facing public questions.

So far, barring some par-for-the-course criticism from politicians opposed to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the state, the brickbatting has been limited to social media platforms. Most of the angst against Ganguly is burgeoning on Bengali YouTube channels whose viewers and subscribers may not be in the Ravish Kumar league. This begs a question: Why the offence at Ganguly’s investment announcement in Spain?

The Spain story

In Madrid on 15 September, Ganguly shared the dais with Banerjee whose delegation told Spanish investors that West Bengal was a great place to invest in. Several industrialists from Kolkata present at the event spoke warmly of their experience of doing business there. So did Ganguly when he explained that he was speaking as an entrepreneur who had already invested in two steel plants since 2007 — one in Patna and another in Durgapur — and would soon partner an investment of Rs 2,500 crore in a third at Salboni, nearly 150 km from Kolkata.

In interviews with Kolkata-based news outlets that had travelled with the CM to Spain, Ganguly mentioned that the Salboni project would be executed with the assistance of Captain Steel, one of the largest TMT manufacturers in India. The company owns the other two steel plants Ganguly has invested in and has had the former cricketer as its brand ambassador for over 15 years.

If you ask me, the announcement must have knocked 99 per cent of West Bengal’s population down with a feather. Ganguly a budding steel magnate? True, everyone has seen him posing with steel rods to advertise Captain Steel products. But surely that’s not the same as investing in one? Yes, in the past, he has opened a restaurant, cricket academy, and even attempted to open schools. But a steel plant?

YouTube channels hurled a barrage of questions at Ganguly: Did he really mean business or was he merely currying favour with Banerjee to promote the interests of the steel company he is associated with? Was he personally investing money? How much? What kind of plant was he talking about? A full-fledged integrated steel factory or a more modest sponge iron plant?

The answers are not available yet. It has been only one week since Ganguly made the statement and the CM’s trip isn’t over.

Is there a political angle?

Even the political signal sent out by Ganguly’s Mission Madrid is causing a flutter. Till now, he has kept his distance from politics in the state. No one has forgotten how Union Home Minister Amit Shah tried to woo Ganguly to contest the assembly election on a BJP ticket against the TMC. Does Mission Madrid signal that he is ready to wear his political heart on his sleeve? Or is there more?

Ganguly’s investments and his politics are his own business and had he not been the cricket icon he is, he wouldn’t face this kind of inquisition. But then social media can be unrelenting. All it wants is eyeballs. And if attacking Ganguly can achieve that, so be it. An icon who stepped up only to help the state’s image-building exercise is being used as a punching bag to vent frustrations that should perhaps be directed at politicians. The kolaveri di spewed at Bengal’s tallest icon is not a gentleman’s game.

The author is a senior journalist based in Kolkata. She tweets @Monideepa62. Views are personal.

(Edited by Humra Laeeq)