KOLKATA: Even the most ardent supporter of Mamata Banerjee would admit that the West Bengal Chief Minister often fails to make out what is good for her and what is not. This trait in her has given rise to a peculiar situation when an influential section of the Trinamool Congress(TMC) is now raising its voice against certain bigwigs of the party while Mamata herself is still not prepared to pay much heed to its advice.

Leading this pack of disgruntled party leaders is a young Trinamool MP who has been elected for the first time in the last parliamentary election. His ire is directed against another Rajya Sabha MP of the TMC who is often referred to as the party’s all India leader. However successive CBI raids and arrests have brought on a pall of tension and consternation among all the political parties which,in turn, are giving rise to new equations among political leaders.

But the CBI investigation has conclusively proved that the West Bengal government appointed special investigating team(SIT) had done precious little to unearth the untold stories of the Saradha scandal. All the arrests already made by the CBI are also very interesting. Particularly important is the arrest of Debabrata Sarkar, an official of the East Bengal club. This arrest has brought to light the nexus of chit funds-politicians-wheeler dealers in the world of Kolkata football as Debabrata Sarkar was close to a number of politicians including a former Trinamool Congress MP. For more than a decade he had often frequented the Writers’ Building, the state’s administrative headquarters and was often seen closeted with the confidential assistant of a very powerful minister.

Debabrata is alleged to have taken money from Sudipta Sen, the owner of the Saradha group of companies by promising to fix up with the RBI and SEBI whatever illegality the company may have committed. In this connection another person named Sandhir Agarwal, alleged to have been in cahoot with Debabrata, was apprehended. Sandhir is in tea and real estate business. He is extremely close to a very powerful politician in Delhi. This politician is spectacled and short statured. He used to wield considerable power so as to influence governmental policy and in fact did so for a long time.

So far as the Saradha scandal is concerned, Mamata Banerjee has to answer a lot. The most embarrassing development for her is the arrest of Rajat Majumder, a former director general of police, West Bengal; who was made a vice president of the Trinamool Congress. All kinds of allegations are being made against him, the most important being his collusion in the escape of Sudipta Sen from Kolkata after the failure of the Saradha.

Interestingly Rajat Majumder had no political background and it defies explanation why he was made the TMC observer for the district of Birbhum. CBI arrested him after searching his residence and finding plenty of discrepancies in his depositions.

Similar is the case of Kunal Ghosh, a suspended TMC Rajya Sabha MP whom the state police had arrested. Kunal has repeatedly said that he was only the chief executive officer of Saradha’s media section and had no connection with the chit fund business. But it is obvious that neither the SIT nor the CBI has believed him. Kunal has a very controversial background. He was with a vernacular newspaper named Sangbad Pratidin and used to fire regular salvos against the Saradha at a certain point of time. Soon he not only joined the Saradha media group but became extremely close to Mamata Banerjee. From this time onwards Mamata started to get positive coverage from Channel 10, a vernacular TV channel owned by Saradha. Kunal is in jail for a long time.

Almost everybody in West Bengal was surprised when Mamata made Kunal Ghosh a party MP in the Rajya Sabha. Mamata- Kunal camaraderie had reached such a pass that the latter was given the responsibility of conducting a huge TMC meeting in Kolkata while all the other senior party leaders sat on the dias as mute spectators. Now the party rank and file as well as some top leaders are questioning Mamata’s sagacity in accommodating Kunal Ghosh in TMC set up.

Meanwhile the Saradha controversy has touched other political parties as well. Rabin Deb, an important leader of the CPM, has been questioned by the CBI in connection with transfer of ownership of a Saradha TV channel. Abu Hashem Khan Chowdhury, a Congress MP and brother of the deceased Congress leader A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhury, has also been quizzed. However mere questioning does not prove anybody’s culpability. Now it is up to the CBI to trace the culprits and find out where has the Saradha money gone,

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