SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Aug 30: The All Jharkhand Chess Association (AJCA) will activate the defunct body of different districts for the promotion of the game in the state.
Newly elected general secretary of AJCA Manish Kumar said that chess has been gaining ground in the state but activities in some districts are almost dead and defunct. The state body has planned to revive the committee in those districts to increase the activities.
State general secretary Manish Kumar said that since the formation of a new committee, every month a major tournament is being organized. It started in Ranchi followed by Chaibasa (West Singhhum) and next month Jamshedpur is going to host a big event.
“There are some districts in the mind of the state body where activities would be increased in the interest of players as well as game,” said Manish Kumar.
However, he admitted that Dhanbad, which was once the centre of chess after Jamshedpur, has now gone headless after the departure of the outgoing general secretary International Master (IM) Neeraj Mishra.
Neeraj Mishra was the general secretary of the Dhanbad District Chess Association and later became the general secretary of the All Jharkhand Chess Association (AJCA). He resigned from the state body this year in January while his tenure in the Dhanbad Association was completed in 2022.
Dhanbad was one of the founder districts of the Jharkhand Chess Association. Its secretary Arvind Kumar Sinha became the first treasurer of the AJCA and Dhanbad hosted the first Jharkhand state championship in 2000 in which Pritam Singh emerged a champion and Rahul Shandilya of Jamshedpur was runner-up.
In 2013, when East Singhbhum’s (Jamshedpur) body chased away Neeraj Mishra, he shifted to Dhanbad and became the general secretary of the district to continue in the state association. He also sent his, the then trusted colleague Pritam Singh, to Hazaribag as general secretary. Now both have parted ways.
But Neeraj Mishra did nothing for the promotion of chess in the coal belt for 10 years. In fact, he sidelined Arvind Kumar Sinha who ran the district at his personal expense from 1988 to 2013. Neeraj Mishra never visited Dhanbad once he was elected general secretary. The last time he visited Dhanbad was in the 2019 election.
A former office bearer of the Dhanbad district Chess Association held IM Neeraj Mishra responsible for the mess in the district chess. He made the Dhanbad a ladder to maintain his position in the state chess and deserted it after achieving his goal, he said.
