Chennai, March 16: One need not have to be a legal eagle to decipher that the tenancy act is for a maximum period of 99 years. It will not come as any surprise if the organisers set some numerical figure as ceiling for Bengal to evict them as the 28 times champions prepare to extend their lease in the Bharat Petroleum National Football Championship for the Santosh Trophy which is set commence at two centres - Chennai and Udhagamandalam - from Wednesday and at Coimbatore from March 19.Meghalaya is the second team to pull out leaving Cluster C a direct contest between Delhi and Gujarat. Earlier, Daman and Diu (Cluster G), who were to play at Coimbatore, had withdrawn. This was disclosed at a press briefing on Tuesday by C R Viswanathan, EC Member, AIFF.At Chennai, Tamil Nadu, with the prerogative tag as the hosts, will kick off the 55th edition against unpretentious Tripura on Wednesday from a Group 4 cluster C match. Madhya Pradesh, the other team in the group, should be relative pushovers for TN, whohave set their sights on a higher pedestal, thanks to the confidence of having made it to the semifinals, each time the event was held in South in mid-90's.Delhi are expected to top cluster C and join TN with the direct entrants Punjab. It may well boil down to a knock-out situation if the expected Punjab-TN clash materialise. For sheer contrast in play, it should be an offering worth waiting for. Karnataka (cluster D) and Railways (cluster H) are the hot favourites to make the last eight.
