CNN-IBN

Kolkata, Jul 25: West Bengal Sports Minister Subhas Chakraborty has said that the former chief of the Board of Control for Cricket in Indian, Jagmohan Dalmiya, did not leak an e-mail that led to the ultimate downfall of former captain Sourav Ganguly.

Just a day after dubbing Ganguly an opportunist, who switched camps, Chakraborty defended Dalmiya in the West Bengal Assembly lobby.

Referring to Ganguly's e-mail in which the former Indian skipper had written that the person responsible for leaking coach Greg Chappell's e-mail to the media should be punished, Chakraborty said, "I can say with full responsibility that the person he (Ganguly) has made the allegation against did not leak the mail."

Adding a twist to the ongoing Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) election drama, Ganguly had on Friday pointed an oblique finger at Dalmiya for the Chappell e-mail leak while openly supporting Dalmiya's rival in the CAB polls.

"People who leak e-mails and sacrifice players' careers should be heavily punished," Ganguly, who is now in England playing county cricket for Northamptonshire, wrote in an e-mail to a relative which was released by his brother Snehasish Ganguly and Dalmiya's challenger and Kolkata Police Commissioner Prasun Mukherjee.

"There are people in CAB who are playing with players' careers. They should not be left scot-free as players need years to reach a certain level," Ganguly said.

Earlier, Subhas Chakraborty launched a strong pro-Dalmiya campaign saying: "Sourav Ganguly no longer needs Jagmohan Dalmiya. He has got someone else to go ahead and so he has passed these comments against him."

Many see Chakraborty's stance as a chance to settle his political scores with the Chief Minister.

Mukherjee has the backing of West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya who has also asked Chakraborty to persuade Dalmiya to step aside from the CAB election.