Sourav Ganguly Cannot Continue as BCCI President, Says MPCA Member Sanjeev Gupta

A life member of the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association, Sanjeev Gupta has alleged that Sourav Ganguly cannot function as the BCCI president any longer as he has been nominated as a member of the ICC board.

Ganguly attended the ICC board meeting on March 28 via video conference as BCCI representative, and has been included in the ICC board.

Since then, Ganguly has also become a front-runner to replace Shashank Manohar as the ICC chairman. Cricket South Africa Director of Cricket and former captain Graeme Smith openly backed Ganguly for the job, although CSA later denied outright support to any candidate in order to not disrupt the ICC protocols.

According to a report in Sportstar, though, Gupta has communicated to Ganguly and other BCCI officials pointing to a rule in BCCI’s constitution which bars Ganguly from being BCCI president.

“It is amply clear that as soon as you are nominated to ICC, your post as BCCI President will get vacated automatically forthwith on being nominated,” the report quoted Gupta as writing.

Gupta had also kick-started conflict-of-interest allegations on several players when new reforms were introduced after the Justice Lodha reforms.

Earlier in the week, the BCCI had knocked on the doors of the Supreme Court seeking an important change in the board’s constitution, that would permit the president Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah to complete their three-year terms without serving the necessary cooling off period, prescribed by Justice Lodha panel.

As per the current rules of the constitution that was approved by the SC, a three-year cooling off period is mandatory for anyone had served two terms in state cricket associations or the BCCI. So according to this, Ganguly and Shah will have to stay away from the board and its activities starting July and June respectively.