'PEOPLES DEMOCRACY'
EDITORIAL, 14th September, 2014
THE multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam
that has looted crores of rupees from over 17 lakh poor people in West Bengal
has now reached such proportions that it is becoming clearer by the day that
the ruling Trinamool Congress party in the state and many of its prominent
leaders are involved neck deep in this conspiracy.
For over three years now, the CPI(M)
has been actively demanding the intervention of Central investigation agencies
to unearth the scam, identify the culprits and to bring them to book in
accordance with the law of the land. Under the Left Front government, a letter
was sent to the financial regulator, SEBI, asking for a thorough investigation
into the scam. Subsequently, after 2011 assembly elections and the change of
government, CPI(M) and Left Front delegations have met the president of India
twice, prime minister on three occasions and the minister for corporate affairs
twice. In all these meetings, the CPI(M) had stressed for an urgent need for
central agencies to step in and ensure that the properties of the Saradha group
of companies be confiscated and the consequent amounts used to compensate the
victims adequately. But the then UPA-II central government pleaded helplessness
as the Trinamool Congress state government was not agreeing to a probe by the
central agencies. It is now clear why the Trinamool Congress and its government
refused such an investigation. It was precisely because it wanted to hush up
this scam and, instead of confiscating the properties of the scamsters decided
to nominally compensate some of the victims, financing this through the state
exchequer. A full scale drama was enacted when the chief minister transported
people from all over Bengal, at state government’s expense, to the Netaji
Indoor Stadium in Kolkata and handed over cheques for paltry amounts to some of
those who were defrauded. The people of Bengal eventually had to pay for the
fraud committed by the scamsters. Clearly, the Trinamool Congress and the state
government were protecting such scamsters.
Eventually, after three years since
2011, at the intervention of the Supreme Court, the CBI was asked to
investigate as the apex court described this scam as having larger dimensions.
A Trinamool Congress member of the
Rajya Sabha who once threatened to disclose the entire story of the scam
including the involvement of the chief minister was promptly taken into custody
by the special investigation team of the state government. He has remained in
jail for nearly a year now.
Another TMC Rajya Sabha member, Ahmad
Hassan Imran, was interrogated by the ED for his connection with the scam
tainted chit fund group. The investigations conducted by the Special Fraud
Investigation Organisation (SFIO) has allegedly found the MP linked with over
Rs 200 crore hawala transactions. The case has been handed over to the CBI to
investigate the possibility of terror links in a neighbouring country.
Various Trinamool Congress leaders,
including various ministers in the state cabinet, had been summoned and
interrogated. The latest has been the arrest of a former Director General of
Armed Police, Rajat Mazumdar, who is currently the vice president of the
Trinamool Congress. He had earlier served as DIG and DIG operations in the
state.
Media speculation is rampant regarding
the chief minister’s involvement in the whole scam. Telegraph (September 10,
2014) reports that the CBI director said that he was aware of the reports of
the alleged meeting between the West Bengal chief minister and Saradha Group
boss, Sudipto Sen (now arrested and in custody), in Kalimpong in 2012. The CBI
chief has reportedly said, “We are proceeding in the right direction and hope
to achieve bigger results in short time”. Reports have also appeared that when
the West Bengal CM was the union railway minister in 2010, the Saradha Group
had bagged a contract with the railways to implement the minister’s pet
project, `Bharat Tirtha’ programme.
All these clearly show that the
Trinamool Congress is equally guilty of large scale sleaze involving the loot
of over 17 lakh poor people in Bengal. It can only be hoped that the CBI, SFIO,
ED and other agencies expose the entire scam and bring the guilty to book while
adequately arranging for the compensation of the victims.
Such sleaze is in addition to the
large-scale attack on democracy through the politics of terror and torture
mainly targeting the Left throughout the state by the Trinamool Congress. The
unabated violence and sexual crimes against women, extortions, widespread
attack on teachers and educational institutions, openly rigging and
manipulating the democratic election processes etc have all resulted in the
virtual break down of democratic structure and institutions in Bengal.
The CPI(M) and the Left have been
consistently braving such attacks with hundreds of its valiant fighters being
murdered and thousands rendered homeless. Fearing the possible early resurgence
of the Left Front in Bengal, the Trinamool Congress, for some time now, has
been indulging in whipping up communal passions hoping to garner the support of
the minorities. This has dangerously played into the hands of the RSS/BJP to
mount a counter communal offensive in order to consolidate its electoral base
and possibly try to make a maiden entry into the Bengal state assembly. Such
competitive communalism creates a potentially volatile situation in the state
shattering the atmosphere of communal peace and social harmony that had been
the hallmark of the over three decade Left Front rule in the state.
This is a real danger that the people
of Bengal are being subjected to today. The CPI(M) and the Left are determined
to foil all such efforts and work for the restoration of both democracy and
secularism while protecting and safeguarding the interests of the vast majority
of the people whose gains under the Left Front rule are being constantly and
seriously eroded. (September 10, 2014)
