Pradeep Gooptu: David vs Goliath

BACKSTAGE

Elections to the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) have been for two decades a rather quiet affair, but year 2006 promises to be different.

Pitted against the former International Cricket Council (ICC) president, former president of the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) and the current CAB president, Jagmohan Dalmiya, is the commissioner of Kolkata Police, Prasun Mukherjee.

A Goliath versus David fight, did you say?

Far from it, for the commissioner is backed by none other than Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, who publicly announced a few days ago that he would like to see Dalmiya step aside from the CAB elections.

Bhattacharjee did not say as much, but his announcement made it clear that Mukherjee was his man and also that he would like the CAB to be not an autonomous body, but one under the control of his political establishment.

A mild-mannered man with a salt-and-pepper mop of hair, Mukherjee is the last person one would expect to be pitted against the rather in-your-face Dalmiya in his trademark safari suit.

A policeman respected in his profession and one who has avoided controversies all his life, Mukherjee caught everyone by surprise a month ago when he started showing up at minor cricketing functions and speaking on the sad state of things.

As a serving policeman, it was clear he had the approval of his boss, Bhattacharjee, who handles the police department himself, but it was not clear how far he would go.

That became clear seven days ago, when a small group comprising retired sportsmen, some sports clubs and even retired footballers held a public meeting to announce Mukherjee's candidature, backed by family of Bengal's cricket icon and current martyr, Saurav Ganguly.

Bhattacharjee's comment advising Dalmiya's withdrawal followed and made Mukherjee a hot favourite for the CAB president's post.

However, his progress is not without thorns, for men like Left Front heavyweight Jyoti Basu and its ministers belonging to the RSP and CPI, have publicly chided him for getting involved in the rather dirty electoral politics of the CAB.

Mukherjee is possibly the first IPS serving officer in Bengal to attempt such a venture, for the only other IPS officer in recent memory who tried something similar was former IG of West Bengal, Dinesh Bajpai, but only after his retirement.

Mukherjee also has to get his arithmetic right, for he has to secure votes from the 200-odd sporting clubs and other affiliates that vote in the CAB elections. The sporting institutions, incidentally, mostly occupy public land and, therefore, are totally dependent on permissions from the police, and the Army, for their survival and functioning.

So long, they had been with Dalmiya, as he had been for many years the darling of the Left Front, having won his support in the 1980s, when he revived the cricket world championships by hosting the Reliance World Cup in India and the finals in Kolkata, following the demise of the UK-based Prudential World Cup series. Since then, Dalmiya had remodelled cricket in India into a major money-spinner through telecast deals, sponsorships and advertising that made the ICC and BCCI cash-rich and revived public interest in sports.

Mukherjee, therefore, has a hard campaign ahead, and it will only get tougher after he is elected.