Sourav Ganguly returns land given to him by West Bengal government, raises the rumours of him joining BJP

The rumours of Sourav Ganguly being the face of BJP’s campaign in the West Bengal Assembly elections due next year have been doing rounds for some while now. The rumours got an unexpected boost on Saturday when the former Indian captain returned a piece of land that was given to him to build a school in Kolkata’s rapidly developing eastern metropolis, New Town.

The current BCCI president Ganguly had received two-acre land by West Bengal Housing Infrastructure, at the behest of the TMC government for building an ICSE affiliated school up to class XII. But according to a senior bureaucrat in former urban development and municipal affairs minister and CPM stalwart Ashok Bhattacharya’s office, Sourav never got hold of that land due to some legal issues.

Thus, the Kolkata Stalwart met the state’s chief minister Mamata Banerjee at her office to return the disputed land back. Reports in Outlook India suggest that the “Ganguly Educational And Welfare Society,” wrote a letter to the state government on the behalf of their president Sourav Ganguly saying that they wanted to return a disputed property that was given to him by the Mamata Banerjee government. The letter has been accepted and the file has been sent to the finance department for further formalities.

Sourav Ganguly’s connection with Amit Shah

The rumours of Sourav Ganguly joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for their campaign in Bengal’s elections in 2021 sparked when the Union Home Minister Amit Shah and two other central ministries had played a key role in making Ganguly the BCCI president in October 2019. Notably, Jay Shah, Amit Shah’s son, is BCCI’s secretary.

However, Ganguly had vehemently denied any political ambition stating that there was no political barter or foul play in him acquiring the BCCI president’s post. He had also said that his popularity in Bengal was built on trust and goodness he won as Indian captain and later as a host of a popular reality show on TV.

Sourav and Mamata Banerjee share good camaraderie with each other, however the former’s decision of returning the land allocated to him is being seen as a signal of his closeness with BJP.