Within days of three Trinamool MPs and an MlA openly rebelling against the party high-ups before being show-caused to explain their anti-party conduct, TMC leaders and Ministers engaged in washing dirty linen in public causing more embarrassment for Bengal’s ruling outfit in an election year.
Rebel Trinamool Congress MP Kunal Ghosh, who was currently leading the rebellion and who had on Friday accused senior leaders of “making me a scapegoat” in the Saradha case, on Monday took aim at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and questioned the appointment of “a former Home Secretary — as a Minister — who was involved in the July 1993 police firing” at a Congress rally “killing many of our supporters.”
Not only this, he shot a volley of charges accusing a senior leader of having demanded `3 crore from the arrested ponzi fund CMD Sudipto Sen and attacking another Minister Moloy Ghatak for “threatening the financers of my newspaper.”
Ghosh, also a journalist who earlier headed the media division — that included a host of television channels — of Sen and currently running a Bengali newspaper also issued veiled threats to reveal names of those leaders who had soiled their hands in the multi-crore chit fund scam.
“It is bizarre that the Home Minister in the Jyoti Basu era, who was involved in the July 21 police firing killing so many Congress workers (Mamata Banerjee was then the Bengal Youth Congress president), is functioning as a Minister in this Cabinet. If you hold Basu and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee responsible for the firing can you absolve this man who was the Home Secretary thenIJ” he blasted.
Curiously, Gupta a former Chief Secretary and an efficient bureaucrat who had fallen out with Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was hand-picked by Banerjee who fielded him against the former Chief Minister in 2011 Assembly elections.
Ghosh also issued veiled threat of revealing the names of many leaders who were directly in contact with Sudipto Sen. “A senior leader who is now attacking me had himself demanded `4 crore from Sudipto Sen,” Ghosh claimed adding quite a few leaders were hand-in-glove with Sen.
Attacking another Mamata confidant and State Minister Moloy Ghatak, the TMC MP said he was “trying to finish my journalist career by threatening the financiers of my newspaper.” However, Ghatak promptly responded saying he “would bring libel charges against Ghosh for maligning me in public.”
Hitting out at “many leaders who pose themselves as paragon of virtue and truth”, Ghosh had on Friday thundered “there is a limit to this honesty drama” apparently referring to the party high command even as other MPs Tapas Paul and Shatabdi Roy lambasted the leadership for “promoting the dishonest and goons and regularly insulting the senior members.”
Soon after rebelling against the leadership he was put to intensive grilling by the police for two consecutive days on Saturday and Sunday. “If this harassment does not stop I will reveal names and sit on a fast unto death,” he said.
Meanwhile, State Transport Minister Madan Mitra whose name had also got embroiled in the controversy reacted to Ghosh’s remarks saying “if you have issues with the leadership or if you think you are not getting sufficient attention you may speak to the Chief Minister but shouting on the road is no solution.” There were many people in the Trinamool who would not even be a bus conductor “let alone a Minister or MP had Mamata Banerjee not propped them in politics,” he maintained warning “the traitors.”
Elsewhere, a delegation led by State BJP president Rahul Sinha on Monday petitioned Governor MK Narayanan questioning the methodology of compensating only 800 people when about 80 lakh people have been affected by the chit fund scam. The Government had earlier decided to pay off the dues of 800-affected people before the Durga Pujas.