SEA OF TROUBLES

THERE IS little doubt that West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is in a deep crisis. The Saradha chit fund scam is fast becoming an albatross around her neck. Several top ministers, MPs, police officers and even celebrities considered close to her are suspected to be neck deep in the Saradha sleaze. One Rajya Sabha MP is already in jail while at least four more MPs have been grilled by either the CBI or the ED.

This apart, a filmstar- turned MP is likely to face the music for his rape- and- shoot speech. As if these problems were not enough, a bomb blast in a house in Burdwan has exposed the presence of a trans- border terror module on Bengal soil. The recovery of lethal IEDs, which have the stamp of Jamaat ulMujahideen Bangladesh, have left Ms Banerjee embarrassed. One TMC MP is already under the scanner for his links with a fundamentalist organisation.

In Kolkata’s political circles it is widely believed that the chief minister shifted her state secretariat from the Writers’ Building to Nabanna on the advice of an astrologer, who had predicted that she would remain untouched by any adversity if the seat of power was shifted across river Hooghly. Ms Banerjee shifted her office to a blue and white high rise in Howrah on the west bank of Hooghly in October 2013.

The shift obviously hasn’t helped Didi much.