Premier chess meet on, IM Neeraj Mishra withdraws

KOLKATA: The 54th National Premier chess meet got back on rails after All India Chess Federation (AICF) president Venketrama Raja intervened at the right time to prevent the players' discontent snowballing into a major crisis.
The shifting of the venue after three rounds frustrated the 14 participating players so much that five of them even withdrew from the tournament.
The revolting five – Vidit Gujrathi, Abhijit Kunte, Tejas Bakre, Abhishek Kelkar and Neeraj Mishra quickly got support on the social media outlets as the news spread like wildfire.
Even international GMs like Anish Giri and Nigel Short cricticised the AICF for forcing the players into such a mess.
The matter looked like taking a global face when Association of Chess Professionals (ACP) president Emil Sutovsky expressed his view backing the players.
"Top Indian players Vidit Gujrathi, Abhijit Kunte, Tejas Bakre, Abhishek Kelkar, and Neeraj Mishra, have withdrawn from the National Championship, following the bizarre organization of the event. On behalf of the ACP I'd like to unequivocally support the players, and call AICF and FIDE to take the sanctions against those who were in charge of the Championship. For many years now the Indian National Championship suffered from the poor organization, but this year's total failure clearly shows that the time for a massive change has come. I call upon all the leading Indian players -- and we are proud to enlist them all as the ACP Premium Members -- to join their colleagues in this fight," he wrote.
Fortunately Raja stepped in just in time and spoke to all the players individually and ensured that the venue is shifted to five-star hotel premise in Lucknow.
All players were allowed to continue without missing a round.
However, Mishra decided to stick to his ground and left Lucknow thereby reducing the tournament to a 13-player affair.
"We are not a trade union people. MD comes satisfies the demand and everything is settled! Had Vidit not written to the president this would never have happened. I didn't like the way chess players/arbiters are treated by the organisers and office-bearers of AICF below the president," he was quoted by a website.