Leander Paes in BJP: A star campaigner and face of India’s Olympics bid?

The speculation around tennis legend Leander Paes joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) turned out to be true when he was formally inducted in the capital in the presence of ministers Kiren Rijuju and Sukanta Majumdar on Tuesday. While the BJP has announced it’s list of candidates for the upcoming assembly elections in Bengal and Paes does not figure in it, party insiders hope to see him in a campaigning role.

Speaking to National Herald over phone, Shamik Bhattacharya, BJP’s Bengal president confirmed that he would join the campaign trail. ‘’Yes, he will campaign. Now that Leander has joined the party, he will be a part of it’s programmes.’’

“For the next 20-25 years, our focus must be on youth, sports education and skill development. I’ve always believed: If I can, you can,’’ Leander remarked soon after joining the party – confirming the buzz for more than a week after he met BJP’s national chief Nitin Naveen in a Kolkata hotel. While sources close to the star say that the top brass of the saffron brigade want to leverage his presence in the party in the country’s bid for 2036 Olympics, BJP supporters like see this as a ‘masterstroke’ in outreach in urban areas.

A well informed source close to the star confided that there could have been several hooks in BJP winning over the Olympic medallist and former world No.1 doubles player. ‘’His passion project is now building an Olympic university and mega sports complex in Odisha, where the BJP is now in power. The party’s top brass are also keen to use the seven-time Olympian and Hall of Famer in their push to host the Games in Ahmedabad, ’’ the sources confided.

The efforts of BJP to coax someone of the stature of Paes, a global sporting icon, is almost a throwback to the last assembly elections in 2021 in Bengal when the BJP had actively wooed former India captain Sourav Ganguly. Unlike Ganguly who had never taken any formal plunge in the political arena despite his proximity to those in the corridors of power,  Paes had been no stranger to it as he had joined Trinamool Congress in 2021 but had largely remained inactive in frontline politics since then.

When he joined Trinamool five years back, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had addressed him as a “younger brother’’. However, his political trajectory within the party soon appeared uncertain and Paes was notably left out of the party’s 69-member Goa state committee announced in January 2022, raising his relevance within the party. Incidentally, the Paes family hails from Goa with his Olympian father Dr Vece Paes hailing from there.   

Born in Kolkata to illustrious sporting parents, late Olympian Dr Vece Paes and Jennifer Paes, Leander is rooted in Bengali heritage through his mother, a great granddaughter of Michael Madhusudhan Dutt – the 19^th century poet and playwright. Having been an international citizen for nearly four decades, the multiple Grand Slam winner has relocated to Kolkata for sometime now.

Only late last year, Leander had taken over an administrator’s role at state level as the President of Bengal Tennis Association (BTA). Asked whether the new responsibility will come in the way of discharging his duties, the BTA officialdom maintained a discreet silence.