Field clear for Dalmiya, ex-top cop loses ground

Thu, Jul 24 03:57 AM

He was once the blue-eyed boy of West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, till the Rizwanur Rehman controversy struck last year.

A week from now, as former police commissioner Prasun Mukherjee takes his stance for the July 29 elections to the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) against a resurgent Jagmohan Dalmiya, he knows that he stands little chance of hanging on to the CAB president's post.

For someone who entered cricket politics with a bang one and a half years back as Eden's first ever bureaucrat boss - flexing his muscles in the Kolkata Maidan as the police chief and blatantly flexing the pampering support of the Chief Minister - Mukherjee has seen all his clout dry up.

Struggling to establish himself as a deft sports administrator and never quite succeeding to win over hearts and minds in Kolkata's club cricket circuit, Mukherjee's fall from power and grace was triggered by the Rizwanur chapter in September 2007, which cost him the supercop tag and the ruling CPI(M)'s blessings.

The CAB electorate comprises about 121 votes from various clubs, associations, districts and universities, and Mukherjee has no more than 40 to 50 votes in his favour at this stage. Only a miracle can help him past the magic figure of 61 votes.

But Mukherjee insists he will fight till the end. It brings back memories of the summer of 2006 when the then top cop, famously egged on by Bhattacharjee, his party and Sourav Ganguly to storm the CAB, had egg on his face after losing to Dalmiya narrowly.

That was Mukherjee's first brush with the Maidan. Six months after that loss, Mukherjee was installed by the CM and his cohorts in Lalbazar as the CAB boss after the national cricket board expelled Dalmiya. Completely alien to cricket politics then, Mukherjee's first chance of proving a point came in February last year when Eden hosted an India-Sri Lanka one-day match. But a thunderstorm washed away the day-nighter and the CAB president was ripped apart for Eden's poor drainage system.

To exorcise the ghosts, Mukherjee unfurled a Rs 100-crore infrastructure project, aimed at a total makeover of Eden. But the project lost steam and fell apart, thanks to a dispute over the tender process.

Then came a telling blow as Bengal cricket hit its nadir. A senior Bengal team that finished runners-up in two previous seasons in the prestigious Ranji Trophy crashed out of the national Elite Division last season. A red-faced Mukherjee administration had no answers, even as he was castigated for failing to stop key players from switching over to the rebel ICL.

He was again hounded by critics for allowing the Ganguly family to have too much say in matters of administration, but then got a chance to wipe the slate clean with the IPL this summer. Eden was to host seven matches of the Shah Rukh Khan-owned Kolkata Knight Riders and the IPL carnival promised windfall income.

But the jinxed team fared miserably in cricket's new extravaganza. And Mukherjee & Co were in a soup after Eden's floodlights went off during the opening IPL match.

He further enraged critics in the Maidan when he failed to assure the clubs and voters that earnings from the IPL would be distributed. Income from the IPL to the tune of Rs 10.5 crore is still to land up at the Eden Gardens office. In a recent chat with The Indian Express, Mukherjee confessed that he still doesn't know how to win over Maidan voters.

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