By Jagannath Chatterjee
New Delhi, Mar 20 (IANS): The growing divide in the East Bengal ranks has widened further in the last couple of days. While Quess East Bengal and investing company Quess did not attend the meeting of the executive committee of the club on Monday - to decide on participation in the Super Cup - Quess chairman Ajit Issac was present when the nine I-League clubs met in Chennai to shoot off a letter to the All India Football Federation (AIFF) on Tuesday.
The meeting of the nine clubs saw them jointly writing a letter to AIFF general secretary Kushal Das wherein they made it clear that they are willing to participate in the Super Cup if AIFF chief Praful Patel meets them to discuss the way forward for the I-League and the Indian Super League (ISL).
Interestingly, while Issac attended the meeting of the nine clubs, the letter was signed by Quess East Bengal CEO Sanjit Sen, as accessed by IANS. Minerva Punjab FC owner Ranjit Bajaj in fact confirmed that the meeting was attended by Issac.
"Issac attended the meeting on behalf of Quess East Bengal. The meeting started at 5 p.m. and went on till 11 p.m.," Bajaj said.
While the Quess East Bengal CEO signed the letter showing solidarity with the other I-League clubs, the executive committee has decided to participate in not just the Super Cup, but also in the ISL next session. The news was confirmed by the club officials after their meeting.
Even as Quess chairman Issac didn't attend the executive committee meeting despite being invited, Quess East Bengal CEO Sen said that they hadn't received any invitation to attend the meet.
East Bengal's executive committee member Debabrata Sarkar remained non-committal on the issue. But general secretary Kalyan Majumdar said that the club was unaware of the Chennai meeting as well as the presence of Issac in the said meeting.
"We were not told anything about the Chennai meeting," Majumdar told IANS. "We are yet to hear from him about the letter that we had sent him to inform him about our intention to participate in the Super Cup."
Clearly the issue is far from over as far as East Bengal is concerned.