After Pre-Poll Narada Expose, Mamata’s TMC Loses Moral Ground

A month before Bengal goes to polls, the Narada expose is enough to rattle Mamata and the Trinamool.

In early 2001, after Tehelka’s expose, in which a number of NDA leaders, including the then Defence Minister George Fernandes and BJP President Bangaru Laxman, were caught on camera accepting cash, Mamata Banerjee, walked out of the government in protest against the corruption charges levelled by the website.

Little did she know that 15 years later, another sting would catch her party MPs and ministers accepting cash from an under-cover reporter. Six TMC MPs, three ministers from her cabinet, the Kolkata mayor and deputy mayor are among others whose greed got the better of them even as they are shown and heard assuring, extending their support for a fictitious company.

While outraged opposition parties, primarily the CPI(M) and the Congress, are up in arms, demanding the resignation of the Chief Minister, debarring the TMC politicians from contesting in the forthcoming assembly polls and imposing President’s Rule in Bengal, Mamata has not stirred in response. Without so much as referring to the damning video clip, she has levelled charges of conspiracy by the opposition against her party.

Party Supremo’s Image Takes a Beating

Even as the Election Commission is seized of the matter, the sudden emergence of the video has shell-shocked the TMC. The party, especially its supremo, has always sought to project itself as honest and transparent. But the sting operation has certainly damaged the carefully crafted image of Mamata and her party. For all her fulminations against the opposition, for which the sting video has come as manna from heaven, the expose will likely dominate the month-long electoral campaign.

Having sensed that after the dormant Saradha investigations, the Narada sting has suddenly opened a window of opportunity for them, the opposition parties are pressing hard on this advantage. The sting has singed almost all the who’s who of the TMC – Mukul Roy, who has again begun cavorting with Mamata after being a pariah for close to a year, Subrata Mukherjee, Sultan Ahmed, Firhad Hakim, Saugata Roy, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Sovan Chatterjee and Shubhendu Adhikari among others.

Graft Blow Bigger Than Saradha

This is perhaps the first time – not even the Saradha scam which ensnared several TMC leaders could harm the party’s fortunes in elections to local bodies and municipalities – that Mamata has felt a sledgehammer blow. Immediately after the video was telecast by almost all vernacular news channels and went viral on social media, the TMC leadership went into a tizzy, claiming it to be doctored and fabricated.

Most of the leaders, who were shown shamelessly accepting wads of currency notes, went silent, evading phone calls from reporters. While they were under instructions by the party leadership not to speak with the press, the party spokesperson’s statement, denying the charges, sounded less than convincing.

Troubled Times for Mamata

• Sting operation by a news agency on TMC leaders has certainly damaged the carefully crafted image of Mamata and her party.
  
• It is likely that the expose will dominate the month-long electoral campaign in Bengal, giving the opposition parties a window of opportunity.
  
• It will be difficult for the TMC to brazen it out, as some of those who have been featured taking bribe must be answerable.
  
• Troubled times lie ahead for Mamata as the Narada video has caused dissension within the party.
  

Ball in EC’s Court

But now that the assembly poll schedule for Bengal has been announced, it is the Election Commission which has the legal authority to take cognizance of the video and the issues that it has thrown up. The EC is legally empowered to hand over the matter for investigation by a central agency. It can withhold the ensuing polls or cancel the nominations of seven leaders who feature in the video and who will contest the election.

As the scene of the battle shifted from the plains of Bengal to Parliament on Raisina Hill, the Left parties, the Congress and, surprisingly, the BJP, which has entered into a pre-poll tacit understanding with Mamata’s party, attacked the TMC in the Lok Sabha. Even if the TMC wants to brazen it out, it will be difficult for it to squirm out of the mess for which those who have been featured taking bribe must be answerable.

Mamata is Answerable

Mamata too must answer for the grave corruption charges against leaders of her party. Merely clinging to a conspiracy theory will not do her or her party any good. Similarly, TMC general secretary Mukul Roy who, among others, has been scathed by the Saradha chit fund scam, has tried to put up a brave front, threatening unnamed persons with a defamation suit.

It remains to be seen whether Roy is able to match his threats with action, for, on a previous occasion – before the 2011 assembly election – when CPI(M) leader Goutam Deb publicly accused Roy of distributing lakhs of ill-gotten money to TMC candidates, he had threatened to drag the former to court. Roy, of course, did nothing of the sort.

Subsequently, when the Saradha scam unfolded, it was revealed in the CBI’s investigation that the fraudulent chit fund companies, including Sudipta Sen’s Saradha, did indeed finance the TMC campaign.

Even as Mamata has remained unfazed by serious charges of corruption, the Narada video has caused dissension in the party leadership. TMC MPs Dinesh Trivedi and Sugata Bose, besides Moon Moon Sen fielded awkward questions in Tuesday’s TMC parliamentary party meeting. Trivedi and Bose wanted to know why the party was not demanding a full-scale probe into the entire matter, including a forensics test of the video. Surprisingly, party leaders did not respond to these questions.

(The writer is a former executive editor of Ananda Bazar Patrika)

Also read:

From Saradha to Narada: The Ugly Underbelly of Bengal Politics