Of the three Ms - Madan Mitra, Mukul Roy and Mamata Banerjee - who have been a target for the Opposition in connection with the Saradha scam, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has finally arrested the first. But following the arrest of West Bengal Transport Minister Madan Mitra, a close aide of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) leadership has changed tracks.
When senior party leader Rajat Majumder, or Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Srinjoy Bose were arrested by the CBI, Banerjee's protest was limited to accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of vindictive politics.
This time around, Banerjee has spared no invective.
"It is out of fear. If she abandons Madan Mitra as she had done with Kunal Ghosh, Madan will reveal Mamata and Mukul's links with Saradha. She wants to protect herself," said Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Suryakant Mishra, the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly.
The theory that Mitra had actually threatened the party leadership with turning whistle-blower, if abandoned, is widely in circulation in Kolkata's political circles. Moreover, the dramatic change of Banerjee's attitude towards Mitra over the last couple of months is giving credence to this theory.
Mitra, for whom the entire party leadership is on the streets, including the chief minister, was at the receiving end of Banerjee's public snub last September, when his name popped up in the CBI investigation into Saradha. When Mitra was waiting to receive the chief minister during a transport department event in the city, he was publicly ignored by her. Banerjee did not even acknowledge his presence. Mitra, along with State Textile Minister Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, who was earlier quizzed by the Enforcement Directorate on Saradha, were missing from Cabinet meetings for several weeks thereafter.
"Madan Mitra and Kunal Ghosh are not of the same political calibre. Unlike Kunal Ghosh, Madan Mitra is a mass leader and has a following of his own," said a party insider.
All is certainly not well inside the TMC. There is a section of the leadership that is not comfortable with the party's functioning. Questions are already being raised privately whether the party is sending out a wrong signal to people by taking out rallies in support of a functionary who is arrested in the Saradha scam, that we now know was all about stealing money from the very poor. The TMC might claim that Mitra is innocent, but the public perception is different. And in politics, perception matters.
Add to it the exodus of some grass-roots leaders. At the district level, leaders from the Left and TMC have defected to the BJP with their followers in districts such as Nadia, North 24 Paraganas, Jalpaigudi and Cooch Behar.
"Trinamool is now steeped in corruption, be it the Saradha scam or otherwise. And Mukul Roy? It's largely because of him the party is on the verge of being ruined," said a very vocal Shucharu Ranjan Haldar, a former TMC Member of Parliament, who has just switched his loyalties to the BJP. There are many inside the party as well who privately share the same anger against Roy, the all India general secretary of the TMC and undisputed no 2 in the party.
Yet, there seems to be no hint of Roy's fall in ranking in terms of proximity to the party leadership.
After being informed about Mitra's arrest by a senior minister last week, Banerjee apparently immediately rang Roy, first to confirm the news and then to decide on how to react. In fact, sources say, Roy has already been asked to consult the country's top lawyers to find out if there could be any legal options to counter "CBI activism" in Saradha.
But it is Roy, who himself seems to be making an effort to stay away from the public eye. And insiders say that may be because Roy is being singled out by his adversaries for the current state of affairs.
"The party is run by Mamata and Mukul. He is Mamata Banerjee's Ahmed Patel," said a party leader. At Trinamool Bhawan at Topsia in Kolkata, the TMC's party headquarters, Roy is hardly to be seen. He was missing even from Banerjee's press conference, and senior party leader Subrata Mukherjee and Subrata Bakshi seem to be in the forefront. When TMC Members of Parliament protested outside Parliament against the BJP and CBI, Roy was seen in the last row.
Roy and TMC have reason to worry. Banerjee's outburst last year in the wake of the unfolding of the Saradha scam has turned out to be prophetic, after all. "Is Kunal a thief, is Madan a thief, is Srinjoy a thief, is Mukul (Roy) a thief, am I a thief?" an angry Banerjee had said. The first three have landed in jail in connection for alleged Saradha dealings.
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