From Saradha & Rose Valley to cattle, coal & job scams, TMC's trail of graft

While each and every election in West Bengal since 2016 threw up the issue of corruption, never before has it left such a visible impact on the top leadership of the Trinamool Congress, including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. This is particularly visible in the run up to the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Political observers say that never before have they seen the Chief Minister repeatedly vouching for her “personal honesty” the way she is doing now, while addressing political and administrative meetings.

This is despite the fact that the state is no stranger to corruption.

The Pandora’s Box of graft in the state opened in 2012, first with the Saradha Ponzi scam coming to light and then with the Rose Valley chit fund crisis bursting to the fore.

These scams not only led to the arrest of the head of Ponzi entities like Sudipta Sen and Gautam Kundu, but also a number of heavyweight Trinamool Congress leaders like Madan Mitra, Sudip Bandyopadhyay, late Tapas Paul and Srinjay Basu among others.

The two central agencies, namely the CBI and ED, started investigations following court orders.

However, the investigations into the Ponzi racket by central agencies were just court-ordered and not court-monitored ones as is the case with the investigations in the current cash-for-school jobs and cash-for-municipal jobs scams.

The buzz generated by the chit fund scam and the subsequent arrests by the central agencies died down eventually and the incarcerated heavyweights were gradually released on bail. One after another, most of them went back to their political lives.

Again, just before the 2016 Assembly elections, West Bengal’s political circles were rocked by the Narada video scandal, where several heavyweight Trinamool Congress leaders and an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, were caught on tape accepting bribes.

While there was speculation that the Trinamool Congress regime would be toppled just after its first term, to the surprise of many, the Mamata Banerjee-led Government returned to power with a bigger majority than what it had in 2011.

At that point of time, political analysts were of the opinion that the corruption issue did not have any impact on the voters of West Bengal, especially the financially-backward sections who gained from the development and welfare schemes of the Mamata Banerjee Government.

However, things began changing from the end of the 2021 state Assembly polls and corruption has become an issue in the state now.

It began with the single-judge Bench of the Calcutta High Court, Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, ordering a court-monitored, central agency probe into the multi-crore cash-for-school job case in West Bengal in 2002.

As Justice Gangopadhyay ordered time-bound completion of investigations, the CBI and ED sleuths were also under pressure to act promptly and take definitive measures.

Justice Gangopadhyay also started directing the probe agencies on the steps to be adopted in the course of investigations.

This highlighted the difference between a court-ordered and court-monitored investigation and its impact.

The first arrest in the cash-for-school job case was made in July 2022 when then West Bengal Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee was taken into custody by the ED.

The arrests of former Chairman of West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) and Trinamool Congress MLA Manik Bhattacharya, party legislator Jiban Krishna Saha and a battery of present and former officials of the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) and West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE), followed soon.

“Another major impact of the court-monitored probes was that unlike earlier, none of the arrested heavyweight leaders managed to get admitted to hospital for protracted periods soon after being apprehended and subsequently get bail,” pointed out senior counsel of Calcutta High Court, Kaushik Gupta.

“Because of the time-bound and court-monitored probe, the central agency sleuths were compelled to do their investigations diligently and frame watertight charges. This was reflected in the charge sheets that were filed in the cases. This resulted in the political heavyweights being forced to languish behind bars,” Kaushik Gupta added.

Just like Partha Chatterjee, another TMC heavyweight, Anubrata Mondal is now languishing behind bars in Tihar jail in New Delhi in connection with the cattle smuggling case, as is former State Food & Supplies Minister Jyotipriyo Mallick.

Jyotipriyo Mallick, who was arrested for his alleged involvement in the PDS scam, is confined to a solitary cell at the Presidency Central Correctional Home in South Kolkata.

While the exact impact of the corruption issue will only be known after the poll results are declared, political observers say that there are two reasons why the top Trinamool Congress leadership is so worried this time.

The first reason is that at least three pillars of her party’s organisational network, namely Partha Chatterjee, Anubrata Mondal and Jyotipriya Mallick, are currently behind bars and will not be able to aid her in making the party’s election machinery watertight in the forthcoming polls.

The second reason is the successfully orchestrated propaganda by the Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari.

Suvendu Adhikari has re-directed the charges of corruption from the Trinamool Congress leaders towards the Chief Minister and her family.

Political observers say that while in the last few elections the Chief Minister hardly spared any words to defend her party leaders against graft charges, this time around she is not only defending her party but her image, too.

The current poll narrative of the Chief Minister has changed from highlighting welfare issues to defending her credibility.

How corruption will impact the Trinamool Congress’ poll prospects only time will tell.