Author: Editorial
Publication: The New Indian Express
Dated: July 31, 2006
Introduction: Bengal CM was a little crochety in defeat
For a man who'd just engineered one big victory, signing a deal to set up West Bengal's biggest-ever infrastructure project, you'd have expected him to show a bit more grace in defeat. Yet the reaction from Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to Jagmohan Dalmiya's re-election as president of the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) was to call it a "victory of evil over good" and a vow to "continue the fight". Coming from a keen sports fan, this just wasn't cricket; coming from a CM, this was intemperate - and just as unnecessary as his intervention in the CAB elections to openly back Dalmiya's opponent, city police commissioner Prasun Mukherjee. Not only was that bad politics - setting him against the CPM's eminence grise, Jyoti Basu, whose blessings were with Dalmiya - but bad administration too. His job as CM is to ensure that the police chief, a public servant, sticks to matters of security, not sport.
The irony is that Bhattacharya, as captain of a team breaking several records in the political arena, has earned widespread admiration and didn't need to diversify into sport. He has already achieved much - including Monday's hard-fought deal with the Salim group - yet has his hands full with work undone. Dabbling in the politics of sport is for those with time on their hands or for those with agendas more controversial than governance.
In the midst of the politics of the election, somebody forgot to mention cricket. Not once during his campaign did Dalmiya reveal what he would do to revive the game in West Bengal, where it is restricted largely to Kolkata and a couple of districts and which has yet to benefit from the skills he's shown at the national and global levels. After the victory, he unveiled his grand agenda: Fighting his foes in the BCCI. One can expect little, then, out of Bengal cricket in the days to come. Bengal's politics is a better bet - provided the CM sticks to the wicket he knows best.