Sourav Ganguly: Shedding inhibitions to become a global face for Bengal?

When Sourav Ganguly, or Dada as the former India cricket captain is popularly referred to, and wife Dona joined West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s entourage in Spain after their daughter’s convocation in the UK, the perception was that he could be there as an icon of the state. As things panned out after his announcement on the sidelines of the Bengal Global Business Summit on Friday 15 September, there was more to it than met the eye. 

Dada's announcement of setting up a Rs 2,500-crore steel plant at Salboni in Midnapore (West) district has been lapped up by local media in Bengal. According to him, this will be his third foray into the heavy engineering business, but it will be the biggest, with the first two being set up in Asansol and Patna early in his playing days.  

“I have been investing since 2007, along with a friend... I was playing cricket, but he (the friend) has been basically looking after it. This is going to be the third plant. The first was in Asansol, then we set up another in Patna, and this one will be in Salboni,” he told the media entourage travelling with the chief minister.  

While it’s no secret that Ganguly comes from a wealthy business family which made its fortune in printing, there seems to be a fortuitous connection between him and the steel industry. As an upcoming cricketing talent, he was recruited by Tata Steel in the early 1990s and played a great deal of cricket for them under the captaincy of Ravi Shastri, former India coach and now a TV pundit. 

A day before the summit, Ganguly was also conspicuous by his presence at the signing of an MoU between the West Bengal government and La Liga to set up a collaborative football academy in the state. His connection with a few Spanish club bigwigs is not new, given his status as a stakeholder in the erstwhile ATK Mohun Bagan, a tie-up between Spanish giants Atletico Madrid and the century-old football club of Kolkata. 

“From today’s business conference point of view, we can emphasise that he (Ganguly) now inhabits a fine confluence of sports, culture, entertainment, investment and industry,” Alapan Bandyopadhyay, ex-chief secretary of the state and now chief advisor to the CM, announced on Friday. 

For those willing to read between the lines, however, the politics of Ganguly’s visit to Spain are conspicuous. As someone who maintained a fine balance in his relationship with the powers that be in his home state and the BJP in New Delhi, he may have now shed his inhibitions about being seen as a global face of Bengal, with or without political strings attached. 

Well, never a dull moment with Ganguly. At 51, his is still a face that launches a thousand products, he is director of cricket operations for IPL franchise Delhi Capitals, the anchor of a hugely successful TV game show running into its tenth season, and now an industrialist. There is also the small matter of a biopic on him starting its shoot in December with Ayushmann Khurrana in the lead. 

What next for Dada, then?