KOLKATA: Sourav Ganguly wants to give back the land gifted to him by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) in 2003.

The eight-cottah plot in question, located near the former Team India skipper's Behala residence, has been in the centre of a controversy in the civic corridors for the past two years.

Although he has expressed his intention of giving the land back to the civic authorities before mayor Bikash Bhattacharya, the latter, however, has shot down the proposal.

The KMC House witnessed a stormy session on Wednesday with Trinamool Congress councillor and municipal accounts committee chairman, Atin Ghosh, demanding that the deed of the land given to Sourav be ratified, turning it into a lease agreement from a gift. The former alleged that though he had requested the mayor a number of times to rectify the agreement, no steps have been taken.

Ghosh also criticised Sourav for undertaking a commercial venture on land given by KMC to promote sports. The mayor, however, ratified the proposal in Ganguly's favour by sticking to the deed of gift option rather than the lease agreement. "We need to close the chapter on this. No allegations regarding this will be entertained in future," Bhattacharya said.

Trinamool dragged Sourav into a controversy by alleging that the land had been wrongfully gifted to him when there is no such provision in the KMC Act to gift any civic property to an individual.

However, the mayor was miffed by the controversy. On Wednesday, he said Sourav met him recently just to say that he no longer wanted to keep the land. "This is quite unfortunate. A player of his calibre does not deserve to be dragged into such controversies. So, I have asked him not to take any decision in haste. I do not think he should be treated like this."