Who is Aroop Biswas? TMC heavyweight who gave up sports portfolio after Messi's Kolkata fiasco

KOLKATA: The Mamata Banerjee govt on Tuesday accepted an offer from Aroop Biswas to step back from his role as state sports minister till the completion of a “fair and impartial enquiry”.

The portfolio, till, then will be with the CM.Biswas, who was seen hugging Lionel Messi and whose family members were seen taking photographs with the soccer superstar on Saturday during the botched-up extravaganza, has been widely pilloried as being the face of the Messi mess.Party seniors say there was growing pressure on Trinamool and Biswas to “do something”, given his “direct” role in the fiasco and his clan’s widely documented presence around the football icon.The paying public erupted in anger 20 minutes into the event, with thousands first booing the phalanx of politicians and organisers who prevented the gallery from seeing Messi properly. Many of the angry spectators, who had paid between Rs 5,000 and Rs 16,000 for a ticket, uprooted chairs and used them as missiles, stormed the playing area, tore up tents and nets, shattered the fibreglass roof of the players’ tunnel and finally carried off flower pots, carpets and furniture in an act of vandalism Kolkata has rarely seen.

Trinamool seniors said Biswas’s position as sports minister had become untenable and this would have proved a burden to the party in the assembly poll due next year. The move, say party seniors, may go some way in stemming public anger and deflecting much of the opposition criticism. “If the face of the mess has been partially ‘sacrificed’, who will they gun for? How will the opposition say the administration did not act?” asked a senior cabinet minister, explaining the rationale behind the resignation offer and its prompt acceptance, however “partial” it might have been.Biswas, regarded as one of the CM’s most trusted aides and a powerful figure within the party, will continue to be part of the state cabinet as power and housing minister.Biswas, 61, became sports minister in Nov 2015, replacing Madan Mitra who was then arrested in the Saradha probe.The news of Biswas’s offer to resign was broken by Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh in a social media post at 2.28 pm. “Aroop Biswas has resigned from the post of sports minister.

He has written to the party chief seeking to be relieved of his responsibilities,” Ghosh posted, sharing Biswas’s letter to the CM dated Dec 15. The handwritten note in Bengali, apparently written hastily on Monday night, did not bear a signature.At 4.23 pm, Ghosh again posted a note from the CMO in which the CM accepts Biswas’s offer to resign saying, “I think he is very much correct and until and unless the impartial enquiry is over, the sports department will be looked after by me for the time being.”Later, in a video statement, the party spokesperson dubbed the move “raj dharma” and a step possible only in a party like Trinamool Congress. “Our party believes in transparency and does not shy away from performing raj dharma. That is why Biswas has resigned. Give me one example of a cabinet minister stepping down in the face of such a controversy in another party,” he said.Repeated calls and text messages to Biswas went unanswered till late Tuesday.Sources close to Biswas said he is a self-confessed Messi admirer. “I remember how he broke down in 2014 when Argentina lost to Germany in the World Cup final and how overjoyed he was when Messi finally lifted the trophy in 2022. We watched both matches together,” said an elderly New Alipore resident and member of Suruchi Sangha club. “He got carried away seeing Messi from such close quarters.” During Saturday’s event, Biswas was seen repeatedly tugging and hugging Messi.

At one point, Messi appeared visibly uncomfortable, prompting CRPF personnel deployed for his security to push Biswas away. Despite this, he was seen persisting with photo and selfie requests involving himself and his family members.Following Biswas’s resignation, TOI visited his offices at New Alipore, Indrani Park and Bijoygarh, all of which wore a deserted look on Tuesday with almost no activity. “Dada hasn’t been here for the past three days,” said a young party worker standing outside the Tollygunge Unnayan Parishad club, which also functions as Biswas’s party office.The neta clans’ selfie rush, VIP culture and outsider entry had created a breach in Messi’s security protocol that made him leave the ground in just 22 minutes, more than 40 minutes before his scheduled departure. The abrupt exit enraged fans, triggering vandalism across the galleries. Chairs and bottles were hurled, spectators stormed the pitch, goalpost nets were torn, and tents inside the stadium were set on fire as many failed to even catch a glimpse of the star.Aroop, clan critical in Trinamool’s power matrix in Tollygunge and beyondAroop Biswas’s resignation as the sports minister following Saturday’s Messi mess at Salt Lake stadium may help the Trinamool deflect some of the public ire and political criticism. However, his— and his clan’s — importance for the party in the critical Tollygunge belt and the state’s cultural landscape is something that will be difficult to ignore.Biswas was Bengal’s sports minister for over a decade. He took the reins in Nov 2015 after Madan Mitra stepped down from the state cabinet following his arrest.Biswas, especially since the 2021 assembly poll — when he won Tollygunge by a resounding 50,000-plus margin — was seen as one of the key faces of the state cabinet. He is one of the few Trinamool seniors the party’s top leadership trusts, and his influence within the party has grown since 2021, say his colleagues in the party and the cabinet.Biswas not only helmed three cabinet portfolios —power, housing, and sports — he is also the party treasurer.

He is a member of all party decision-making bodies, including the core committee and disciplinary committee. He is also the party’s go-to person for North Bengal.But he is not alone. His brother, Swaroop Biswas, also holds considerable sway in the state’s film industry as the president of the Federation of Cine Technicians’ Workers of Eastern India (FCTWEI), which the party puts to good use during election seasons and otherwise.

Tollywood has contributed seven MLAs to the party’s assembly strength, and several big names, including five MPs, come from the film industry.There is more. Jui Biswas, a Trinamool councillor, is now a KMC borough chairperson. The Biswas clan also controls the Suruchi Sangha Durga Puja, easily one of the biggest show- and traffic-stoppers during Bengal’s biggest festival season, which the Mamata Banerjee govt has championed as being the showpiece of the state’s religious and cultural calendar.Such is Aroop Biswas’s influence that he is often asked to mediate industry disputes like the stalling of shooting and plays a pivotal role in shaping govt policies affecting the film industry, including deciding on the change of prime time in cine programming and the inclusion of Bengali cinema there.Brother Swaroop’s clout on FCTWEI can be gauged by the fact that there are 27 separate cine guilds under FCTWEI with a total membership between 12,000 and 14,000.

If their family members are taken into account, this is not a small figure of voters. Despite facing controversies, Swaroop has been instrumental in advocating for technicians’ rights and welfare. In recent times, he has started taking an active role beyond just deciding on the welfare of Tollywood’s foot soldiers.But this also has its fault lines. Tollywood is witnessing several disconcerting voices aimed at the way the industry is working with Aroop and Swaroop at the helm.

Some of these cases have also reached the Calcutta High Court.Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh, however, made it clear that the party has nothing to say on the resignation issue. “Biswas felt he should step down from the sports department to ensure the neutrality of the probe. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has acknowledged this intent and accepted it. This is purely an administrative issue, and the party has nothing to do with it. What we want to only highlight here is that sports violence happened in Kolkata in the past during the CPM regime.

What was missing in the past is accountability,” he said.