Former Indian cricket team captain Sourav Ganguly on Saturday rejected a report that claimed he acted as an envoy of the Trinamool Congress to ask Baharampur MP Yusuf Pathan, also a former cricketer, to vacate his Lok Sabha seat so that former chief minister Mamata Banerjee could contest by-elections from the constituency.
In a statement signed on June 6 and addressed to “all media,” Ganguly said the allegations “as far as I am concerned, are a reckless disregard for the truth.” He was referring to a front-page report in Anandabazar Patrika newspaper on June 4 about “Mamata heading to Delhi for direct combat”.
The report had said that Ganguly, who had rejected several offers in the past to enter politics, was approached to convey Mamata Banerjee’s message to Pathan, and that Pathan had refused to resign on her behalf.
What Ganguly said
“Ms. Mamata Banerjee never asked me to convey any message from her to Mr. Yusuf Pathan, whether it was to step down from his parliamentary seat, as alleged or otherwise or at all,” Ganguly said in the statement.
“I never approached or contacted Mr. Yusuf Pathan regarding any such or other request/letter. As such, the question of Mr. Yusuf Pathan responding in the manner alleged in the article cannot arise,” he added.
Ganguly further said that he “never got involved in political matters at any stage with any concerned person” and urged the media “not to fall prey to rumors and speculation without verifying the veracity of printed and published facts”.
Neither Pathan nor the TMC leadership issued a recorded response to the report.
Pathan, a member of India’s 2011 World Cup-winning squad, won the seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, defeating veteran Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury by 85,000 votes. He and Ganguly were briefly teammates with Kolkata Knight Riders as well in the IPL.
Tough times for Mamata
The report emerged amid speculation about how Banerjee would return to electoral office after the TMC’s defeat in the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections, in which the party was restricted to 80 seats in the 294-member House and she lost her own seat to the BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari.
This also came at a time when the party is facing one of the most serious crises in its three-decade history.
This week, 58 of the 80 members of the TMC rebelled, with the Assembly Speaker recognizing expelled lawmaker Ritabrata Banerjee as the leader of the opposition – a move the TMC has called “illegal” and plans to challenge in the Supreme Court.
When the leadership held a meeting at Banerjee’s residence in Kalighat on Friday, only eight non-rebel council members were present.
