For 19 long months, Jagmohan Dalmiya had been languishing in wilderness, quietly plotting his way back to active cricket politics. Dalmiya’s comeback story took yet another massive step towards a happy ending on Tuesday night, when he routed Prasun Mukherjee with a resounding 24-vote margin to reclaim the president’s seat in the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) elections. Dalmiya, who got a whopping 71 of the 118 votes, comfortably cleared the winning mark of 60 votes.Mukherjee wasn’t expected to pull a rabbit out of the hat in tonight’s showdown, and his 47-vote finish hardly comes as a surprise in an election which had already been wearing a heavily lop-sided look over the past few months.Until last year, the vanquished CAB chief Mukherjee was seen flexing his muscles in the Kolkata maidan as Kolkata Police Commissioner. Ironically, the former supercop was left woefully out of ammunition in this battle against Dalmiya.Quite expectedly, wild celebrations broke out in the corridors of the BC Roy Club House Office at Eden Gardens after the result was declared — it was Dalmiya himself who made the dramatic announcement at 10.15 pm. Just as the court-appointed observer was done with the counting process, a beaming Dalmiya strode out of Eden’s conference room and broke the news to his followers, screaming out that he has bagged 71 votes.In no time, scores of Dalmiya’s fans came crashing out to pass on the information to the waiting mediapersons.Interestingly, Dalmiya’s entire panel also prevailed, with both his candidates for secretaries’ posts — Biswarup Dey and Arun Mitra — winning with comfortable margins.With tonight’s win, Dalmiya returns to power in Kolkata cricket after one-and-half years of fighting bitter court battles against the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) over alleged cases of fraud.Back in 2006, he had narrowly defeated Mukherjee in a bitterly-fought election, despite facing resistance from all quarters including the chief minister, the Indian board, the local police and Sourav Ganguly. Later the same year, Dalmiya was expelled from cricket administration by the BCCI and pushed deep into the background.
