Team News Riveting
Kolkata, February 18
The Saradha scam continues to haunt West Bengal politics as a “new edition” ahead of the ensuing state polls has set the ball rolling.
A former member of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s cabinet and her one-time close confidant, Upen Biswas is coming out with a sensational book that spills out the details of the Saradha chit fund scam, the country’s worst corruption scandal.
In a book titled Dhamma Adhamma that is yet to be published, 79-year-old former IPS officer has written that the Ponzi scheme was a “monumental fraud, which overshadows all other scams of India”.
The Saradha scam, which came to light in 2013 was the first major corruption scandal to dog the Mamata Banerjee government. Several senior Trinamool MPs, ministers and leaders have been implicated in the case while at least two party MPs — Sudip Banerjee and Tapas Pal — and a minister, Madan Mitra, were arrested by the CBI in connection with the scam.
The TMC leaders could grill the BJP, which has posed a big challenge for the ruling party, for inducting a few of its scam tainted leaders in its fold. Some of the accused TMC leaders such as Mukul Roy, Suvendu Adhikari and Sovan Chatterjee have since switched over to the BJP.
Recently, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) revealed that the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund was used to pay the salaries of employees of Tara which was under the scanner for being part of Saradha Group of companies. It is estimated that a total of Rs 6.21 crore was paid to the Tara TV Employees Welfare Association from the Relief Fund.
If the BJP rakes up the Saradha scam, the TMC would try to defend by putting the ball in the court of the accused now in its camp. For the BJP managers, it would be a strategic move to make the scam a public issue rather than a political one.
If so, the root of the Saradha scam will run very deep and has the potential to completely derail the TMC campaign for the upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections.
