KOLKATA, JULY 6: The forthcoming Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) elections’ campaign is revolving around one man: an unlikely Manoj Tiwary.

The prolific middle-order bat’s threat to leave Bengal for greener pastures has been turned into an aggressive political move by a resurgent Jagmohan Dalmiya camp against the incumbent Prasun Mukherjee-led administration.

It’s been doing the rounds lately that young Tiwary could be switching over to an Elite Group team in the Ranji Trophy after Bengal were relegated last season. Now that Rajasthan and Saurashtra are keen to rope in Tiwary to shore up their batting this season, the Mukherjee-led CAB administration has been taken by surprise and is desperate to keep him back.

A wary CAB joint-secretary Samar Paul has invited Tiwary on Monday to discuss the matter and it is learnt that the association is even willing to offer the batsman captaincy in a bid to prevent him from leaving. “Let’s see what happens when Manoj meets the CAB officials tomorrow. The idea is to talk him out of the offers. And CAB is open as far as captaincy is concerned,” a key CAB source said.

Meanwhile, sources close to Tiwary told The Indian Express that he won’t leave Bengal for the time being, and will think it over only after he returns from the India ‘A’ team’s tour to Australia that will last one and a half months.

Nonetheless, the Dalmiya lobby is in no mood to take its foot off the pedal as yet. CAB joint-secretarial candidate from the Dalmiya camp, Biswarup Dey, said: “The question of leaving Manoj does not arise. He should have been Bengal captain last season. If he leaves Bengal, it will be yet another major let-up by this administration.”