For empty stands at Eden, blame TMC

A year or two after CPM was seen trying to get a stranglehold on the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) by getting entangled in the state body’s elections, it’s the turn of archrival Trinamool Congress.

While the CAB members’ protests against the decision to deny them free tickets for the Indian Premier League (IPL) matches here is growing louder by the day, not many have noticed that the man behind it is a TMC strongman, MLA Jyotipriya Mallick.

The Trinamool bigwig is the secretary of the Cricket Members Forum of Bengal and is playing a key role in garnering support from among the 31,000 CAB members in the bid to turn the tables on the CAB, and more embarrassingly, on organisers Red Chillies Entertainment owned by Shah Rukh Khan.

Led by Mallick, the members’ forum had moved court, challenging the decision of Kolkata team owner Shah Rukh and hosts CAB to take away the members’ rights to get free tickets for the IPL matches at the Eden Gardens.

The Calcutta High Court today rejected the forum’s petition, but directed the CAB to set aside the amount raised through ticket-sale to members and not hand it over to Shah Rukh’s Red Chillies right now.

The case will next come up at the City Civil Court again, but Trinamool’s Mallick has already made up his mind to drag Shah Rukh, the CAB and the Indian Cricket Board to the Supreme Court over the next week.

The fresh threat comes across as bad news for the CAB and the owners of the Kolkata team, who are reeling following a pathetic turnout at the ticket-counters for the IPL matches.

Eden is slated to host seven home matches of the Sourav-led Kolkata Knight Riders, starting April 20. So far, less than a measly 1,000 of the 31,000-strong CAB member base have booked their tickets for the day-night Twenty20 matches. The poor turnout was expected ever since it was announced that the members, comprising one-third of Eden’s capacity, will have to buy their share of tickets.

Speaking to The Indian Express today, Trinamool MLA Mallick made it clear that he would ensure most of the 31,000 CAB members boycott the IPL matches.

“When we started our protests, we had 6,000 members signing up for the joint protest. Right now, we have 9,357 members with us and the figure is growing. We are campaigning hard among all the members, and we will soon make sure that most of the 31,000 members boycott the IPL,” threatened Mallick.