Mamata Banerjee on Thursday spoke out fiercely against the alleged ill-treatment meted out to former Team India skipper Sourav Ganguly and said it was a matter of “global shame” that he was unable to contest the election for the post of the chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC).
The outburst came three days after Mamata’s public appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure that Ganguly was able to contest the ICC election.
“Today is October 20, the last date for filing nominations for the ICC election. It struck me again... how Sourav was deprived. I requested many at the BJP-led Centre. You saw I issued a public appeal (to Modi on Monday) as well. He was very much entitled. He is a three-term director. Had he been sent, it would have increased the pride of the nation,” the Trinamul Congress chairperson said in the afternoon, insisting that the “wrongful” exclusion of Ganguly from a second term as the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) was “bad and sad”.
Mamata also underscored how Union home minister Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah was allowed a second term as the secretary of the BCCI.
The chief minister went on: “But in order to make room for somebody else, somebody who has a lot of time left in his life, why deprive a deserving someone? I am not in favour of this. This is a matter of global shame. We will see who ascends to that (ICC) post.”