Messi event 'mess-up': West Bengal sports minister resigns; show-cause notices to state police chief, others

Kolkata: West Bengal sports minister Aroop Biswas, a senior leader of the Trinamool Congress, resigned on Tuesday as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s government moved to salvage its image after the fiasco over an event featuring football icon Lionel Messi at a stadium in Kolkata on December 13 triggered criticism against the ruling party.

Mamata Banerjee’s government also issued show-cause notices to the state’s Director General of Police, Rajeev Kumar, known to be a close confidante of the TMC supremo, and another senior police officer, Aneesh Sarkar, in addition to removing Dev Kumar Nandan, the Chief Executive Officer of the stadium, Yuva Bharati Krirangan, from his post. The state government’s sports secretary, Rajesh Kumar Singh, was also served a show-cause notice.

Banerjee accepted the resignation of Biswas after he offered to quit. She, herself, will now hold the sports portfolio.

Biswas, however, will continue to hold the power portfolio in the state government.

Argentine football icon Lionel Messi had appeared at an event in the Yuva Bharati Krirangan in Kolkata on December 13. He, however, had left the stadium as the spectators had broken the fences and barricades and vandalised other infrastructure after entering the field, as many of them had got angry, because they had entered the venue by buying expensive tickets but had failed to get a glimpse of the soccer legend, who had been surrounded by organisers, politicians and other dignitaries, as well as policemen and other security personnel.

Mamata, herself, posted on X and apologised to Messi for the chaos. The chief minister also constituted a high-level inquiry committee headed by retired Calcutta High Court judge Ashim Kumar Ray to investigate the mismanagement during the event.

The organiser of the event, Satadru Datta, was also arrested by the police.

Mamata’s government and the ruling TMC, however, drew flak for the fiasco. With the assembly elections in West Bengal just a few months away, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) did not miss the opportunity to cite the incident as an example of misgovernance of the TMC.

Biswas wrote to Mamata on Tuesday, requesting that he be relieved of the responsibility of the sports department of the state government for the sake of the impartial inquiry into the incident.

“I think he is very much correct and, unless and until the impartial inquiry is over, the sports department will be looked after by me for the time being,” Mamata wrote in a memo to the state’s chief secretary, accepting the request of Biswas.