Shubhrata Mukherjee: Serious allegations of favoritism surfaced at the Calcutta Maidan. Grievances were raised in hockey. Field conditions are hot around the hockey derby. As a result, the East Bengal club announced its decision to pull out of the derby. This time the complaint is against Mamta Banerjee, the president of the Bengal Hockey Association and brother of the Chief Minister of the state. Lal-Hulud made explosive allegations of favoritism against him. And East Bengal took up that grievance and decided not to field a team against Mohun Bagan in the hockey derby.
Even before the derby in the current Kolkata Hockey League, the sports community of Bengal has become active regarding such allegations. This hockey derby in the Kolkata Hockey League was to be held today i.e. on Sunday. The letter was sent from East Bengal before Sunday’s match i.e. one night before the scheduled day. Allegations have been made in this letter. East Bengal has withdrawn its name from Derby by sending a letter.
In the letter, Swapan Banerjee, president of Bengal Hockey Association and brother of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, has been directly accused of this. Incidentally, East Bengal-Mohun Bagan met in the first ever hockey derby last Feb’19. There was a lot of excitement in this hockey match as well. The excitement spread from the gallery to the playground. Anarchy, chair throwing, brick-stone pelting, scuffles were also not spared. Both club officials and supporters were involved in the trouble. The police had to intervene to control the situation. Red-Yellow alleged that the president was behind the trouble. After the trouble in the derby match, there was trouble in the East Bengal-Punjab sports hockey match. Supporters of both the teams got into a brawl over bamboo and hockey sticks.
East Bengal alleged that its request to hold the canceled hockey derby on February 19 at another venue was not acceded to. The East Bengal club said that they would not participate in the tournament until their problems were resolved.
