Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh walked on the Salt Lake Stadium turf almost 20 years ago.
On January 12, 2005, just a few months into his first term as Prime Minister, Singh, who passed away in New Delhi on Thursday, came to Calcutta to inaugurate the National Football League. The season would start off with a clash between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan.
Calcutta has seen former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi inaugurating the first Nehru Gold Cup at Eden Gardens in 1982 and also in 1984, but Manmohan remains the only Prime Minister to touch down in the city to inaugurate the country’s premier league.
The then All India Football Federation president and Congress leader Priya Ranjan Das Munshi, who had key portfolios like parliamentary affairs and information and broadcasting, had invited him. Manmohan Singh’s wife Gursharan Kaur, then defence minister Pranab Mukherjee and chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee were also in attendance.
“Das Munshi was a respected politician. He invited Singh and that boosted the prestige of the NFL,” former AIFF top official Alberto Colaco told The Telegraph on Friday.
During Das Munshi’s tenure as AIFF president, then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee inaugurated the 1999 NFL and Manmohan also did the honours in 2007, both in New Delhi.
On that 2005 January afternoon at the Salt Lake Stadium, the match had ended goalless and Syed Rahim Nabi walked away with the player of the match award.
“I remember our coach (Subhas Bhowmick) had said not to get carried away by our Prime Minister’s presence,” Nabi said.
A versatile footballer who could play in any position, Bhowmick had experimented with Nabi as a retractable wing-back and the former India footballer was a constant threat on the flank. “It was a big day for me,” Nabi added.
The derby is a distant memory for most of the players who featured in that match. East Bengal’s Alvito D’Cunha and Mehtab Hossain of Mohun Bagan can vaguely remember.
“Almost 20 years. Yes respected Manmohan Singh was there,” said Alvito. “I was very young. Our Prime Minister had come, I can recollect. Bablu da (Subrata Bhattacharya) was our coach,” Mehtab said. “Sunil (Chhetri) and I had just started out,” Mehtab added. “It was my first season in Bagan,” Mehrajuddin Wadoo said.
But ex-goalkeeper Sangram Mukherjee, the East Bengal captain for that season, remembers the day well.
“Being the captain I had the honour of introducing my teammates to Manmohan Singh. It was a red-letter day for me. You do not get to meet the Prime Minister just like that,” Mukherjee said. “I was cautious when the match began. I did not want to botch up with him watching from the VIP enclosure.”
“I was lucky to meet our present Prime Minister Narendra Modiji during the inauguration of the Howrah Metro earlier this year. That’s because I am an employee of the Metro Railway. As a player, Manmohan Singh remains the only Prime Minister I shook hands with. That came to my mind after the news of his death broke,” Mukherjee said.
Those were the days when the imposing stadium had more capacity and there were bare minimum security protocols. However, that derby saw unprecedented arrangements and traffic regulations.
“We had reached two hours before the afternoon kick-off,” a fan said.
