It’s not a matter of cynicism that Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has pointed at West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s involvement in the massive Saradha Chit Fund scam in its submission to the Supreme Court.
It would be too facile to term it as a handiwork of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), eyeing as it is to unseat Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the assembly polls in next few months. A charge which flips easily out of mouths of Ms Banerjee and her faithfuls but which shamelessly hides that it’s not BJP but the Supreme Court which had asked CBI to step in in the first place.
It’s more than just a political slugfest. Its an issue which has doomed millions of lives, living deads as it were, in a scam which runs into US$ 6 billion. Yes 6 billion dollars, you heard it right.
A chit fund company which duped around 2 million investors, mostly rural without access to banks or means to secure loans, that is in early 2000s, promising them spectacular returns without any basis and adopting methods so outrageous it would be beyond the scope of even Bollywood scriptwriters.
That such a heist could be pulled off, year after year, in a system which has police, judiciary and state government in place, could not have been but just by a chance. It could only be out of collusion between money and power. And this isn’t just one instance.
This has happened over decades, again and again, giving West Bengal the dubious title of “Ponzi Capital of India”. As of 2013, when Saradha group of companies suffered the inevitable collapse, 80% of all its prototypes were run nowhere else but in West Bengal. It’s said the measure of these scams exceeds Rs 10 trillion or US$140 billion. Phew!
There has been little of consequence since Saradha Group collapsed in 2013. Of course, a commission was set up, the state government announced a relief fund of Rs 500 crores despite the RBI red-flagging the propriety of the fund; a special Investigative Team (SIT) was formed. But what stayed in mind was Mamata Banerjee’s brazenness. She is reported to have said: “Ja gechhey ta gechhey” (whatever has gone has gone). And when she levied an additional 10% tax on tobacco products to raise the funds, she is said to have asked smokers in jest: “to light up a little more.”
Thereafter, Narendra Modi’s BJP has been at the Centre and we have been witness to the Prime Time television of Mamata Banerjee coming to the defence of her then Kolkata police commissioner (then) Rajeev Kumar to the extent she staged a 45-hour “Save the Constitution” dharna in his defence after the CBI sleuths came knocking at his door last February.
The man, since then, has eluded agencies and between transfers and moving between High Court and Supreme Court he hasn’t quite cooperated with the investigations, as agencies claim, and which is of such prime importance as he once was the head of the SIT on Saradha and one of the prime movers between the accused and the arrested.
Be that as it may, CBI has now presented its case with the Supreme Court and it has not been shy of linking Mamata Banerjee herself with this mother of all scams. It has alleged that Mamata Banerjee and Saradha Group’s head Sudipta Sen spoke to each other through then TMC’s Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Kumar Ghosh’s phone nearly daily—298 times to be precise—in one year. Between his arrest and release (2013-2016), Ghosh has again been drafted by Banerjee as one of TMC’s spokespersons.
Further, CBI in its report, has exampled the alleged “quid pro quo.” It has alleged that Saradha Group once footed the expenses of assembly polls and gave Rs 25 lakhs each to 205 MLA hopefuls. That it booted the expenses of all Durga celebrations pandals in Mamata’s constituency Bhawanipur in Kolkata. That it funded a TMC mouthpiece and weekly newspaper Jago Bangla which sold Mamata’s paintings for lakhs of rupees. That it was the Chief Minister Relief Fund which bailed out Tara TV, a group of channels, run by Saradha Group between 2013-2015, spending a total of Rs 6.5 crores, paying Rs 27 lakhs monthly for 23 months. A private media channel, bailed out by CM Relief Fund isn’t too easy to ascertain. If true, heads must roll.
It’s a sordid tale, a Scam 101 Guide for the innocents. How money was usurped from the palm of poor, how an illusion was created through alleged protection from Powers-that-be and how propaganda was institutionalized by running eight newspapers in five languages and a number of TV channels employing 1500 journalists.
You and I might favour BJP or TMC in the forthcoming assembly polls. But who stands for poor? Who weeps on the dagger plunged deep into the body of democracy in West Bengal? And that’s the question which the people of West Bengal have to answer when its time to cast vote in April-May 2021.
