The Trinamool Congress appears to be failing as a Government and as a political party. Its response to the chit fund scam is a firm indication of that
Politicians ought to pay attention to some of the wisdom to be found in Newtonian physics. West Bengal's messiah of poriborton, Mamata Banerjee, is one such politician. In her scramble to grow and grow big at an unnaturally fast pace, she acquired associates and their associates with such reckless abandon that she is now reduced to declaring to the now-wavering masses that she has no family, no ties and is all alone.
The need to isolate and insulate herself from the intensifying whirlwind that is threatening her image and damaging the cult that grew around her as the icon of integrity and probity has touched a new desperation as the police investigations unravel the details of murky, sordid transactions routed through the so-called chit fund, Saradha Group, headed by a man who clearly had dreams of being a financial and media mogul. The more Ms Banerjee insists that she was ignorant of who did what with the Saradha Group, the more ‘evidence’ in the form of leaks of police investigations emerges suggesting that it would have been impossible for the Chief Minister of West Bengal not to have known that things were being done in a manner that required serious investigation.
The Saradha scam raises questions on the role of Government and the politics of governance. Assuming that the role of Government is to uphold the rule of law, which includes maintaining law and order and managing the administration of the work done by its various departments effectively, ethically, transparently and with accountability, it is evident that the Trinamool Congress regime now finds itself in a mess. The politics of governance requires keeping the Opposition at bay and keeping down the costs that incumbency automatically incurs.
The Trinamool Congress seems to be failing as a Government and as a political party. The panic among agents and depositors of the Saradha Group has snowballed into a crisis that called into question the credentials of various members of the ruling party. With hundreds and thousands of agents and depositors seeking reassurance and action from Ms Banerjee personally and her party generally, the crisis has cost half-a-dozen lives and serious law and order problems across West Bengal. Since people do not know what the Government is doing, they are staging protests, storming the police and demanding action from the Government. Politically, the party has been pushed to the wall attacking and blaming the CPI(M) to divert attention away from those named and shamed by Sudipta Sen.
In an article in a Bengali daily, West Bengal's former Finance Minister Ashok Mitra details the actions of how the CPI(M)-led left Front Government dealt with the estimated Rs5,000 crore Ponzi scam run by the infamous Sanchayita label. Two details are significant; the first that the Government acted to protect thousands of potential depositors from being taken for a ride by taking cognisance of the problem even though there were no complaints because it believed that no business could give returns to depositors of 60-70-80-90 per cent. Second, it warned potential depositors and existing ones that Sanchayita's scheme was “poison”. In other words, Mr Mitra and his Government, put depositors first and everything else second, including the absence of enabling law. Its method was raid and seize Sanchayita's assets, so that the sale of these could be used to refund the depositors.
In contrast, the current West Bengal Government after announcing a Rs500 crore fund, 20 per cent to 25 per cent of which would be collected as sin-tax from tobacco consumers, has wasted time by quarrelling over who should be held responsible and who should pay the defrauded depositors. It has launched police investigations and conducted some raids and seizures. It has appointed a Commission of Inquiry that will go into everything. It is unclear as to who is heading the investigations, how these investigations are being monitored and what will be done with the seized assets of the Saradha Group.
From its actions, it is confusing as to where the Trinamool Congress Government's concern is focussed. Is its concern depositorsIJ Is its concern the maze of connections that linked Sudipta Sen to various prominent members of the Trinamool CongressIJ