Lionel Messi’s “GOAT tour” promoter Satadru Dutta has hit back at the Trinamool Congress after the party’s rout in the Assembly elections. Dutta, who was jailed for more than a month after Messi’s visit to the Salt Lake Stadium descended into chaos last December, has threatened to sue the party for ₹100 crore.
In a series of posts on social media, the entrepreneur alleged that Trinamool ruined three years of his hard work and defamed him in the aftermath of the stadium incident on December 13. He added that he would take the party to court and fight the case till the end.
“Just because you have lost in the elections, don’t think that you have been punished. I will lodge a defamation case and I will go to the Supreme Court if need be. I will fight
till the end,” Dutta wrote on Tuesday.
He also slammed then Bengal sports minister Aroop Biswas for thrusting himself and his associates in front of the Argentine superstar, reportedly leaving him irritated. The jostling crowd around Argentina’s World Cup-winning captain by the minister and his associates angered the capacity crowd at the stadium, leading to vandalism inside the stadium and cutting Messi’s visit short.
Dutta blamed Biswas for the incident and said that the outgoing minister would have to answer for his actions.
“Repeatedly, I told him not to click pictures. But he used his power and went on to take photos. He will have to pay for this,” Dutta said.
Following the debacle, Dutta spent 37 days in jail after police registered two separate cases against him and others in connection with the incident.
The mayhem tarnished Calcutta’s image as the sporting city of the country, with images of the chaos receiving widespread coverage worldwide.
