What's Cooking? Sourav Ganguly Hosts Amit Shah for Dinner at His Kolkata Residence

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who is in Bengal on a two-day visit, on Friday evening visited the Kolkata residence of former India skipper and BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, setting off another round of will-he-won’t-he speculation. Senior BJP leader was accompanied by Leader of Opposition in the state assembly Suvendu Adhikari, party ideologue Swapan Dasgupta, and party state president Sukanta Majumdar for the dinner.

Asked about the dinner meet-up, Ganguly told reporters that though there was a lot of speculation, the dinner was because he had known Shah for a long.

Political circles have been abuzz about the BJP trying to bring the former cricketer on board since before the West Bengal elections last year with some reports suggesting he was being offered the Chief Minister’s post if the party won, but Ganguly has held off on a political plunge so far.

The visit, which is not on Shah’s packed itinerary for Friday, began with a program at the Victoria Memorial where Ganguly’s wife Dona Ganguly performed a dance piece in the Union Ministry of Culture’s ‘Mukti-Matrika’ event. The Home Minister then headed to the Ganguly residence in Behala where he was hosted for dinner.

The dinner was a close family affair where besides Ganguly, his wife Donna, the cricketer’s elder brother and sister-in-law played the role of hosts. Ganguly, who at one time had been fondly dubbed ‘Prince of Calcutta’ for his cricketing prowess, told reporters, “Bohu kotha rote (many speculations are rife), but I have known him (Shah) since 2008. While playing, I used to meet him. There’s nothing more than that.”

He had also pointed out he had worked with his son in the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

Commenting on the meeting between Shah and Ganguly, Chief Minister had said in jest that she would ask the former cricketer to feed Bengal delicacy mishti doi to the Union minister.

Playing down the buzz over the meeting, BJP vice-president Dilip Ghosh had said, “I don’t know if he (Shah) will go to Sourav’s residence or not. We have no schedule of this. Meeting eminent people is part of our organisation’s tradition… let’s try to get an opinion.”

Ganguly enjoys cordial ties with both the BJP government at the Centre and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in the state. He had visited Nabanna, the West Bengal Secretariat, a few days ago and held a meeting with Mamata Banerjee.

(with inputs from reporter Siddharth Sarkar)

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