Ranji Trophy 2019-20 | BCCI shifts two matches out of Northeast as protest intensifies
Due to heavy protest in North-East for the contentious Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), the BCCI has decided to shift two Ranji Trophy matches this season to Ranchi and Puducherry. The Arunachal-Mizoram game is now being played in Puducherry while Jharkhand are now hosting Assam.
After the Upper house of the parliament got the Citizenship Amendment Act passed, there has been massive unrest in North-East and Bengal which threatened to jeopardise two of the biggest BCCI events this month. However, the BCCI was prompt enough to take the games away from North-East, which already saw the Services-Assam game in the first round to be abandoned, with Arunachal Pradesh are playing Mizoram at the Siechem Stadium in Puducherry.
While Assam was supposed to host Jharkhand this time in Guhawati, the match has been moved to Ranchi in order to facilitate better.
“We’ve shifted just two matches out of that region. The rest of the games, at the junior level, are taking place there only,” Saba Karim, BCCI General Manager, told TOI on Monday.
The second big event, perhaps the biggest of the month, the IPL auction is slated to be hosted in Kolkata and the governing council, led by Brijesh Patel, has decided to keep the venue unchanged despite the fact that Bengal chief minister Mamata Bannerjee is spearheading a huge rally in Kolkata in protest of the bill passed in the parliament by the union government.