Few takers for TMC's 'zero tolerance' stand against corruption

By Sumanta Ray Chaudhuri
Kolkata, April 23 Last year, just a week after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested former West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee for his alleged involvement in the multi-crore teachers' recruitment scam, the Trinamool Congress's national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee had announced the decision to strip Chatterjee of all his ministerial and party posts.

The party leadership also suspended Chatterjee from the Trinamool Congress. The leadership had claimed the TMC to be a party with a different ideology, which has "zero tolerance" against corruption, and doesn't even hesitate to action against a leader of the stature of Chatterjee, once the virtual second-in-command in the Trinamool as well as the state government.

Even at that time, the opposition parties had questioned why Chatterjee was just "suspended" and not "expelled" from the party, considering the serious nature of the charges against him. However, the general perception at that time was that by acting against Chatterjee, the party leadership wanted to send across a message to all corrupt leaders of similar action against them.

However, this perception changed slightly after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Trinamool's Birbhum district President Anubrata Mondal in August last year for his alleged involvement in the multi-crore cattle smuggling scam. The entire party leadership, including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, threw its weight behind Mondal, describing his arrest as a conspiracy by the central agencies steered by the BJP.

Mondal was neither expelled, nor suspended and not even removed from his chair as the district president. He is currently in judicial custody in Delhi's Tihar Jail but still continues as Trinamool's Birbhum district chief.

Similar was the case of Trinamool MLA and former President of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE), Manik Bhattacharya, who is also in judicial custody following his arrest by the ED in connection with the recruitment scam.

Although Bhattacharya had to vacate his chair as the WBBPE President following a clear-cut order from the Calcutta High Court, the party is yet to take any disciplinary action against him.

Pointing out that Bhattacharya was removed as WBBPE President only after a court order, Congress leader and Calcutta High Court counsel Kaustav Bagchi said that had the court not given such a direction, Bhattacharya would have continued in his post from behind the bars.

Similarly, a week has passed since the CBI arrested Trinamool legislator from Burwan Assembly constituency in Murshidabad district, Jiban Krishna Saha, for his alleged involvement in the same recruitment scam. The party leadership has not yet dropped any hint about probable disciplinary action against him.

Now, following an order by the Calcutta High Court, the CBI has launched a probe against Trinamool legislator from Tehatta Assembly constituency in Nadia district, Tapas Saha, in the same scam.

All eyes are now on the Trinamool leadership to see how it reacts in this matter.

Whenever the question of inaction against leaders behind the bars is raised, the Trinamool cites the prompt action taken against Partha Chatterjee, which according to its leaders proves how firm the party leadership is on its stand of 'zero tolerance' for corruption.

The party also expelled two youth Trinamool Congress leaders, Kuntal Ghosh and Shantanu Bandopadhyay, a few days after both were arrested by the ED for their involvement in the scam.

However, even after taking this step, the Trinamool leadership could not avoid the criticism of the opposition parties. Opposition leaders like the BJP's Samik Bhattacharya and the CPI(M)'s Sujan Chakraborty described these two expulsions as just an eyewash, considering that these two were just middlemen and pawns in the entire scam and it was easier for the party to get rid of them compared to the masterminds behind the scam.

According to political analyst and columnist Amal Sarkar, the prompt action against Chatterjee came for three reasons.

"First, it was an outcome of an initial shock and at that point of time the party leadership thought that such action against the virtual second-in-command might help the leadership in an image makeover. Secondly, in my opinion, at that time, the party leadership might not have imagined that the spiderweb of the scam within the party will reach such a level, where almost every day names of leaders of different ranks will surface because of their involvement in the scam.

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