India, June 6 -- Former Team India cricket captain Sourav Ganguly on Saturday rejected as untrue a report that claimed he had acted as an emissary for the Trinamool Congress to ask Baharampur MP Yusuf Pathan, also a former cricketer, to vacate his Lok Sabha seat so that former CM Mamata Banerjee could contest a by-election from the constituency.

In a signed statement dated June 6 and addressed to "all the media houses", Ganguly said the allegations, "in so far as they concern me, are in reckless disregard of the truth". He was referring to a front-page report in Anandabazar Patrika on June 4 about 'Mamata heading to Delhi for direct fight'.

The report had said Ganguly, who has rejected several offers in the past to enter politics, was a...