The Narada scam is still hurting Mamata Banerjee
The CBI investigation into the expose and the recent rise of the BJP in Bengal will affect the Trinamool electorally
This time Mamata Banerjee is worried. When the 23-minute Narada capsule was first aired on the morning of March 14 last year, the Assembly polls in Bengal were less than three weeks away. But despite speculation, the unprecedented show of the dirty dozen – MPs, MLAs, ministers, Kolkata mayor all extending their hands to accept cash – could hardly dent the Trinamool Congress vote bank, and the mercurial leader essayed an eye-popping sweep reducing the opposition to a virtual joke, putting Mamata at the pinnacle of her political career.
But Banerjee cannot be faulted if she cannot conceal her displeasure after the CBI registered an FIR on Narada. She knows that with BJP changing from a paper tiger to a real one baring its teeth , mid-April 2017 is substantially different in her state than it was a year ago. After the victory in UP, BJP is a different animal. To the new found verve, two local factors must be added. First, the unprecedented push in Ram Navami celebrations in Bengal,; and second, the BJP secured a vote share jump from 9% (in 2016) to 31% in the Kanthi Dakshin bypoll. Add to that the fact that Amit Shah has kicked off the BJP’s expansion drive from Naxalbari in Bengal yesterday.
The names in the FIR that CBI registered in Delhi provides the real shivers. Apart from seven MPs, it has the senior-most minister (Subrata Mukherjee), confidants of Banerjee (Bobby Hakim and Sovan Chatterjee), a crowd puller (Suvendu Adhikari) and even a man with a ‘clean’ reputation, former physics professor, Saugata Roy. According to the grapevine, CBI has drawn up a list of 17 more names, and they may contain more nasty surprises.
If they are put behind bars, the Bengal chief minister will have to virtually create a new party leadership structure. Incidentally, two Lok Sabha MPs Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Tapas Paul are already in CBI custody and the chit fund investigation is by no means over.
Now, the worst part. While some of the leaders are close to Mamata Banerjee, some are not , and if they sing in front of the investigators, troubles will multiply for the leader, who built Trinamool Congress from scratch in 1998 and led it to power. In January 2015, there was speculation that the number two in the party, Mukul Roy, had a frank discussion with CBI sleuths investigating the Saradha scam.
And Narada is no Saradha, the probe for which was largely conducted from Kolkata. With CBI registering the FIR in Delhi, it has become virtually impossible for Trinamool leaders to pull strings. In the recent meet in Bhubaneswar, BJP president Amit Shah has announced that Bengal is a priority state for the party, signalling that the decks are clear for the onslaught.In the summer of 2017, Mamata Banerjee may just sweat it out a bit more, far more than she has ever done in the four decades of her political career.