Former cricketer and BCCI President Sourav Ganguly met West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar at the Raj Bhavan in Kolkata on Sunday, 27 December, setting the political circles in Kolkata abuzz with talks that he's joining politics.
The West Bengal governor announced about the meeting through a series of tweets.
“Had interaction with ‘Dada’ @SGanguly99 President @BCCIat Raj Bhawan today at 4.30 PM on varied issues. Accepted his offer for a visit to Eden Gardens, oldest cricket ground in the country established in 1864", wrote Dhankhar on Twitter.
Speculations were further fueled by the fact that the next day, on 28 December, Ganguly travelled to Delhi for the inauguration of late Arun Jaitley's statue at the DDCA grounds, where he met Union Home Minister and senior BJP leader, Amit Shah.
After the meeting, however, Ganguly maintained this was just a “courtesy meeting.”
"If the Governor wants to meet you, you have to meet him. So, let us keep it like that," Ganguly said in Delhi.
West Bengal Governor Dhankhar has been a fierce critic of the Mamata Banerjee dispensation in the state, with back and forth between the Raj Bhavan and the Chief Minister's Office being a regular affair.
After the meeting, political circles started speculating if Ganguly would be joining the BJP.
The cricketer's name has been the doing the rounds for a while as a possible chief ministerial candidate for the BJP, which has announced that it will fight the 2021 Assembly elections in the state without a "CM face."
There have been reports over the past few months of the BJP being in touch with him to rope him into the party.
When asked by reporters if he and the party would accept Ganguly as the chief ministerial face, BJP Bengal President, Dilip Ghosh, said that these discussions should be kept for a time when he joins the party.
"He needs to join the party first, work hard and make his mark. This is not the Trinamool, where anyone can just come in. If he works hard for the party, the party will give him utmost respect," said Ghosh.
"Let him join BJP first," said Trinamool leader Subrata Mukherjee, while reacting to the meeting.
(With inputs from ANI)
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