Sridevi performs at Hope ’86. (top) Cheerleaders during Friday’s IPL match at Mohali. (PTI)

Calcutta, April 25: Subhas Chakraborty, who cocked a snook at orthodox Left’s allergy to apasanskriti (decadent culture) by organising Hope ’86, now wants the Indian Premier League cheerleaders banned.

On the ground of apasanskriti, the transport minister explained today.

“Had such a thing happened on the football field, I wouldn’t have allowed it…. This is nothing but apasanskriti. The whole thing has left me shocked,’’ Subhas said.

“How can girls in such dresses be allowed to perform at cricket matches?”

How can Bollywood belles be allowed to do mujras at a concert organised by a communist government, many shocked Left leaders and scholars had asked 22 years ago after hearing of Subhas’s Hope ’86 at Salt Lake stadium.

So, what led Subhas into the about-turn? Hope 2008, some would say, tongue firmly in cheek.

The excitement surrounding IPL has come at a time Subhas is nursing the injury suffered on the politburo pitch, where he could not make it to either the CPM central committee or the state secretariat. A subsequent intervention by the third umpire, Jyoti Basu, too, hasn’t helped till now.

Struggling with such poor form, it may not be a bad idea to be on the good side of those who have the party leadership’s ear now.

The IPL gifted Subhas an opportunity to win influential friends such as chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee who does not seem to be bowled over by what some derisively refer to as tamasha cricket.

But Subhas almost muffed the chance to capitalise on the rare confluence when he went out with all guns blazing against Cricket Association of Bengal president Prasun Mukherjee after the Eden floodlight fiasco. Bhattacharjee soon after stepped in and took charge before Subhas could do more damage.

The chief minister’s indifference to IPL could be because he is a purist about the game and it may have nothing to do with the cheerleaders.

But politics, especially CPM politics, is full of imponderables, and Subhas’s apasanskriti googly at the cheergirls has fuelled speculation whether he is playing to Bhattacharjee’s gallery.

Subhas today told reporters he would discuss the matter of a ban on the IPL girls with Bhattacharjee.

Asked by reporters, the chief minister dismissed the cheerleaders and his minister’s statement. “I don’t keep track of things like these. Neither do I want to know anything about it.’’

Subhas, asked if Hope ’86, too, could be termed apasanskriti, flew into a rage. “Hope ’86 was a tasteful concert where artistes sang and danced. The programme was exclusively devoted to music and you cannot call that apasanskriti. But what has cricket got to do with cheerleaders?’’

By today’s standards, Hope ’86 had little to raise eyebrows. However, for many fellow travellers of Subhas then, the programme symbolised the CPM’s slide towards “bourgeois decadence” just as the IPL is representing the “commercialisation” of cricket to old-timers.

The seven-hour show on December 29, 1986, held to raise money for charity, was inaugurated by then chief minister Jyoti Basu. Bollywood’s who’s who had performed before a one-lakh-strong crowd. Amitabh Bachchan, however, had to leave early for urgent medical treatment.

Today, PWD minister Kshiti Goswami and water resources minister Nandagopal Bhattacharya supported Subhas; so did party veteran Benoy Konar. “Subhas is right in objecting to vulgar exhibitionism,” Konar said.

The CPM distanced itself from the ban call. “Our party does not discuss matters like these. We are more concerned about price rise, the panchayat polls and Opposition attacks on our workers,” state secretariat member Shyamal Chakraborty said.

Union information and broadcasting minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi said the cheerleader controversy existed only “on television”.

“It isn’t fair to look for culture in everything. Those who saw the samba dancers at (Brazil’s) football matches will understand what cheering means,” he said.