He was once the blue-eyed boy of West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, till the Rizwanur Rehman controversy struck last year.

A week from now, as former police commissioner Prasun Mukherjee takes his stance for the July 29 elections to the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) against a resurgent Jagmohan Dalmiya, he knows that he stands little chance of hanging on to the CAB president’s post.

For someone who entered cricket politics with a bang one and a half years back as Eden’s first ever bureaucrat boss — flexing his muscles in the Kolkata Maidan as the police chief and blatantly flexing the pampering support of the Chief Minister — Mukherjee has seen all his clout dry up.

Struggling to establish himself as a deft sports administrator and never quite succeeding to win over hearts and minds in Kolkata’s club cricket circuit, Mukherjee’s fall from power and grace was triggered by the Rizwanur chapter in September 2007, which cost him the supercop tag and the ruling CPI(M)’s blessings.

The CAB electorate comprises about 121 votes from various clubs, associations, districts and universities, and Mukherjee has no more than 40 to 50 votes in his favour at this stage. Only a miracle can help him past the magic figure of 61 votes.

But Mukherjee insists he will fight till the end. It brings back memories of the summer of 2006 when the then top cop, famously egged on by Bhattacharjee, his party and Sourav Ganguly to storm the CAB, had egg on his face after losing to Dalmiya narrowly.

... contd.