Kolkata: Former India cricket skipper Sourav Ganguly is seemingly under attack from the BJP leaders, with questions ranging from the recent foreign tour with West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee to his entrepreneurial ventures.
As of now, Ganguly has faced them with elan saying that he gets invitations from everywhere given his status as a public figure.
“What’s the big deal?” Ganguly quipped Sunday evening, dismissing criticism for accompanying Mamata in Spain and Dubai in a 12-day official visit to woo investors. “I am neither an MP, MLA or minister. I have no political attachments. I will go wherever I feel like, I am not answerable to anyone. I am invited by the world. We live in a society where we go meet people, not an animal world.”
After Ganguly announced at the Bengal Global Business Summit in Madrid that he had plans to open a steel plant in Salboni in West Midnapore district, the opposition BJP leaders are now coming out to criticise him. At a news conference, BJP state chief Sukanta Majumdar questioned what was the need for Ganguly to announce his business plans abroad.
On 15 September, seated beside Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Madrid, Ganguly announced he will be opening a third steel factory in Salboni within the next 20 months. Two other factories in Asansol and Patna are already manufacturing steel.
“Sourav Ganguly is an eminent personality, he is well established, he has been running a steel plant since 2007 but none knew about it, he never visited the plants and he decided to break his silence in Spain? It is natural for people to ask questions,” BJP spokesperson Shamik Bhattacharya said.
But it was not just the Spain tour that drew the BJP’s attention as it questioned the West Bengal government handing out a plot where Ganguly claims that he is running his cricket academy.
“He had bought land in New Town (near Kolkata). He hasn’t done anything. He is only making money,” Leader of the opposition and BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari said.
Trinamool Minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, meanwhile, condemned the attack being made on Bengal’s sporting icon.
“Sourav is the pride of Bengal, and he accepted the chief minister’s invitation to represent Bengal in Spain during her official visit. He was very close to CPI(M) leader Ashok Bhattacharya; that does not mean we called him a CPI(M) worker. He represented Bengal,” Chattopadhyay told ThePrint.
In May 2022, Ganguly and his family hosted Union home minister Amit Shah at their Kolkata residence. BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar, former Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta, Leader of the opposition Suvendu Adhikari and West Bengal BJP in-charge Amit Malviya had accompanied Shah at Ganguly’s residence in Behala.
During this meeting, Ganguly had told the media, he had known Shah since 2008 while he was playing cricket and that he works with his son and BCCI secretary- Jay Shah.
Political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty called these past and present hobnobbing with political heavyweights a “balancing act” by the former Indian cricket captain. “Sourav Ganguly is a businessman. He is keeping both the Centre and the state happy so that he can continue his enterprises smoothly,” he told ThePrint.
Last year, Ganguly had shared the stage with Mamata at the UNESCO felicitation ceremony speaking on behalf of the Bengal government for the recognition of Durga Puja as an intangible heritage.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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