News Analysis India

Tag: Trinamool Congress

  • Buzz grows on BJP vice-president Mukul Roy’s return to TMC after Abhishek Banerjee’s hospital visit

    Express News Service
    KOLKATA: The buzz that BJP national vice-president Mukul Roy may return to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has grown louder since Wednesday’s visit by TMC leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee to the hospital where Mukul’s wife is undergoing COVID treatment.

    According to sources, Abhishek enquired about her health and wished her a speedy recovery. Though Mukul’s wife, Krishna, was admitted to the hospital on May 14, no BJP leader had bothered to pay her a visit. Abhishek’s visit, understandably, has set the alarm bells ringing in the saffron camp.

    Within two hours of his visit, state BJP president Dilip Ghosh changed his schedule and rushed to the hospital. The following day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself dialed Mukul and enquired about his wife’s health. 

    Amid all this, some political observers in the state have linked Abhishek’s visit with one of the statements Mamata made while campaigning for the election, in which she compared Mukul and Suvendhu Adhikari.  “Mukul is facing injustice by them (BJP). He has been fielded in the constituency which is far away from his hometown. What I can say he (Mukul) is much better than him (Suvendu),” she had said. 

    If one reads that statement and Abhishek’s hospital visit together, the panic in the BJP is understandable. “Abhishek’s visit to the hospital was enough to scare the BJP leaders about a possible re-run of the defection episode. And this time, the exodus would be from the saffron camp. If a national vice-president of BJP changes his political allegiance, it will definitely send a wrong message to the electorate and will damage the party’s image nationally,” said Bishnupriya Dutta Gupta, a political science professor.

    “Though we have differences, his (Abhishek’s) courtesy is exemplary,” said Subhrangshu, Mukul’s son, who joined the BJP last year.

  • Four Trinamool Congress leaders appear before CBI court in Narada sting case

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: Four senior leaders, facing trial in the Narada case, appeared before the special CBI judge at a court in Kolkata on Friday. Judge Anupam Mukerjee had on April 17, while ordering interim bail to the four leaders, directed them to physically appear before the court on June 4.

    State ministers Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim, TMC MLA Madan Mitra and former city mayor Sovan Chatterjee appeared before the judge and left the Bankshall court premises after a while. Judge Mukherjee said that the next date for the hearing of the matter will be fixed later in the day.

    A five-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court granted interim bail on May 28 to the four leaders, who were arrested on May 17 by the CBI, which is investigating the Narada sting tape case on an order of the high court.

    The special CBI court had granted them bail on that day itself, but the order was stayed by the high court, which remanded them to judicial custody.

    Production of the four before the special CBI court was held virtually on May 17 as the investigating agency claimed it was unable to produce the accused in court physically owing to protests outside its office at Nizam Palace by a mob of 2,000-3,000 people.

    Chargesheet in the Narada sting case was also submitted against the accused before the special court on that day. The special court, granting interim bail, had fixed the next date of hearing on June 4, when the accused were to appear before it.

    They were placed under house arrest on May 21 by a division bench of the high court, which modified its earlier stay on interim bail granted to the four leaders by the special CBI court. The matter was referred to a larger bench of five judges after the judges of a division bench presided by Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal differed on granting interim bail to the four accused.

  • BJP’s West Bengal unit told to stay mum on chief secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay’s transfer

    Express News Service
    KOLKATA: The BJP’s central leadership has asked leaders of the party’s West Bengal unit not to make comments on the transfer of the state chief secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay to New Delhi.

    Sources said that the aim is to keep the party’s Bengal unit out of the controversy that has erupted over the transfer of the state’s top bureaucrat, which was announced hours after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee skipped a cyclone review meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday. 

    The ruling Trinamool Congress has claimed that Bandopadhyay’s transfer is yet another example of the BJP practising vendetta politics after its dismal performance in the state Assembly elections. “Our national leadership has asked us to desist from making any comments related to the chief secretary’s transfer. It seems, the party wants to make it clear that it was the Union government’s decision, and that the state BJP had no role to play,” a senior BJP functionary said in Kolkata.

    Reacting to Bandopadhyay’s transfer, Mamata said the BJP has not been able to digest its poor results in the recently-held Assembly elections.

    She also charged that the Centre is trying to cause harm to the state by transferring an officer who was overseeing relief operations in areas affected by Cyclone Yaas as well as the state’s fight against COVID-19.

    Both the CPM and Congress also echoed Mamata and described the Centre’s transfer order to Bandopadhyay, issued without consulting the state government, as revenge for the TMC defeating the BJP in the state.

    Sources in the state secretariat said Bandopadhyay is not likely to report in Delhi on Monday. “He will attend a meeting headed by the chief minister over the issue of the post-cyclone situation and relief operations,” said an official of the state government.

    The state government is yet to give a clearance to report to Delhi over Banopadhyay’s transfer. Nor has the Centre responded to the state government’s request to withdraw his transfer letter. Notable, the West Bengal government had sought a three-month tenure extension for Bandyopadhyay, who was scheduled to retire on May 31. The Centre had approved it.

  • Narada case: Judge questions Calcutta HC’s handling of interim bail grant

    By Express News Service
    NEW DELHI/KOLKATA : A sitting judge of Calcutta High Court wrote a letter to the all judges of court questioning the handling of the interim bail order of three Trinamool Congress MLAs and the CBI’s plea challenging the order. The letter comes days after the Supreme Court too had criticised the High Court over its handling of the case.

    “Our conduct is unbecoming of the majesty the High Court commands. We have been reduced to a mockery. As such, I am requesting all of us to salvage the situation by taking such steps, including convening a Full Court, if necessary, for the purpose of re-affirming sanctity of our rules and our unwritten code of conduct,” the judge wrote in the letter.

    Justice Sinha alleges that the CBI’s e-mail asking for the Narada case to be transferred out of Bengal was wrongly listed by the Calcutta High Court before a division bench comprising two judges instead of a single judge.  The letter dated May 24, mentioned a series of questions on the procedural gaps in admitting the CBI’s plea.

    The judge also mentioned that the accused continued to be in custody though they had obtained bail from designated court. He also raised question on the procedure in assigning the CBI’s plea to a bench headed by the acting chief justice.

    “Whether the high court exercising power in the matter of transfer of a criminal case, at that stage, on its own initiative, could have passed the order for stay, is the second question,” he wrote.

    Justice Sinha wrote in his letter that the CBI’s transfer plea should have been heard by a single judge and should not have been treated as a writ petition as there was “no substantial question of law related to the constitution.”

  • ‘Mistake to have joined BJP’: After Sonali Guha, now Sarala Murmu wants to rejoin TMC 

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: With the TMC having emerged victorious with a thumping majority in the recently concluded assembly elections, turncoats who had quit the party to join the BJP seem to be making a beeline for re-entry into the Mamata Banerjee camp, the latest being Sarala Murmu.

    Murmu, who had switched camp as she was reportedly unhappy with the ticket that was given to her by the ruling party, has expressed her desire to return to the TMC, a day after Banerjee’s former aide, Sonali Guha, made a similar appeal.

    Claiming that it was a mistake on her part to have joined the BJP, Murmu said that she wants party supremo Mamata Banerjee to pardon her.

    “If she accepts me, I will stay with her and work for the party diligently,” Murmu told reporters at her Malda home. Murmu was nominated from Habibpur seat in Malda, but party sources had then claimed that she was keen on contesting the election from Maldaha constituency.

    “I committed a mistake and want Didi (Banerjee) to pardon me for that,” she said.

    Former TMC MLA Sonali Guha had on Saturday written to Banerjee, apologising to her for leaving the party.

    The four-time MLA from Satgachhia in South 24 Parganas district, in a letter which she also shared on social media, said, “The way a fish cannot stay out of the water, I will not be able to live without you, ‘Didi’.

    I seek your forgiveness and if you don’t forgive me, I won’t be able to live.

    Please allow me to come back, and spend the rest of my life in your affection.

  • West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee creating hurdles for CBI in its Narada sting operations probe: BJP

    Banerjee had rushed to the CBI office, shortly after state ministers Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim and TMC MLA Madan Mitra were arrested by the central agency.

  • West Bengal Governor gave nod on May 7 to CBI plea seeking sanction to prosecute three TMC MLAs

    By PTI
    KOLKATA/NEW DELHI: West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar gave his assent to CBI’s request seeking sanction for prosecution of four political leaders, including three from the ruling TMC, in connection with the Narada sting case on May 7, two days after Mamata Banerjee was sworn in as chief minister for the third time, officials said on Monday.

    They said the CBI approached the governor’s office seeking permission to prosecute Trinamool Congress MLAs Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee and Madan Mitra as well as former party leader Sovan Chatterjee in view of a 2004 Supreme Court judgement in which the top court had agreed that the governor could give sanction for prosecution.

    The officials said that the agency approached the governor’s office as the four were ministers in the previous government at time of the Narada sting case in which politicians were purportedly caught taking money on camera.

    They said that since the governor administers the oath of office and secrecy to the ministers, his or her office is the sanctioning authority.

    The officials said the CBI would also cite a judgement of the Supreme Court in a case related to former Madhya Pradesh ministers Rajender Kumar Singh and Bisahu Ram Yadav in which sanction to prosecution was given by the then governor.

    A complaint was made to the Lokayukta against them for having released 7.5 acres of land illegally and they had challenged their prosecution in the apex court.

    The top court in its judgement had said, “If, on these facts and circumstances, the governor cannot act in his own discretion, there would be a complete breakdown of the rule of law in as much as it would then be open for governments to refuse sanction in spite of overwhelming material showing that a prima facie case is made out.”

    “If, in cases where a prima facie case is clearly made out, sanction to prosecute high functionaries is refused or withheld, democracy itself will be at stake.It would then lead to a situation where people in power may break the law with impunity safe in the knowledge that they will not be prosecuted as the requisite sanction will not be granted,” he added.

    Hakim is the urban development minister in the present state government and Mukherjee holds the portfolio of panchayti raj and rural affairs. Mitra is an MLA and Chatterjee is an ex-MLA, who quit the TMC in 2019 to join the BJP but left the saffron party this year after he was not given a poll ticket.

    The officials said that all these leaders were arrested and chargesheeted in a crime that was allegedly committed in the previous tenure, and since all of them were ministers, the sanctioning authority was with the governor’s office.

    The sting operation was conducted by Mathew Samuel of Narada TV news channel in 2014 wherein people resembling TMC ministers, MPs and MLAs were allegedly seen receiving “illegal gratification” from representatives of a fictitious company in lieu of favours, the CBI has alleged.

    The agency has alleged that Hakim was purportedly seen to have agreed to accept a bribe of Rs 5 lakh from the sting operator, while Mitra and Mukherjee were caught on camera receiving Rs 5 lakh each. Chatterjee was purportedly seen receiving Rs 4 lakh from the sting operator, it added.

    The tapes were made public just before the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal. The Calcutta High Court had ordered a CBI probe into the sting operation on April 16, 2017.

  • Total anarchy: Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar slams TMC agitation after arrests of ministers, MLA

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: Expressing concern over agitation by TMC workers outside the CBI office here and elsewhere in West Bengal after the arrest of two ministers and others in the Narada sting case, Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Monday alleged that there is “total lawlessness and anarchy” in the state and the police and administration are in “silence” mode.

    The governor urged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to contain the “explosive situation” and asked her to weigh the “repercussions of such lawlessness and failure of constitutional mechanism”. He also accused the state administration of allowing the “situation to drift” and “not taking any tangible action” against the agitators.

    Message @MamataOfficial “Total lawlessness & anarchy. Police and administration in silence mode. Hope you realize repercussions of such lawlessness and failure of constitutional mechanism.Time to reflect and contain this explosive situation that is worsening minute by minute.”
    — Governor West Bengal Jagdeep Dhankhar (@jdhankhar1) May 17, 2021

    Taking to Twitter, Dhankhar said, “Message @MamataOfficial Total lawlessness & anarchy. Police and administration in silence mode. Hope you realize repercussions of such lawlessness and failure of constitutional mechanism. Time to reflect and contain this explosive situation that is worsening minute by minute.”

    Hundreds of TMC supporters launched a protest outside the CBI office here and threw water bottles and stones at the central force personnel who barricaded the CGO Complex in Nizam Palace where the central agency’s office is located.

    Holding party flags and shouting slogans against Dhankhar, a group of TMC activists demonstrated outside the two gates of Raj Bhavan here. “Invited attention @MamataOfficial on channels and in public domain I notice arson and pelting of stones at CBI office. Pathetic that Kolkata Police and West Bengal Police are just onlookers. Appeal to you to act and restore law and order,” the governor said.

    ALSO READ| Follow lockdown norms, will fight battle legally: TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee to protesting workers

    He asked the government and the state police to take all steps to maintain law and order. “Concerned at alarming situation. Call upon @MamataOfficial to follow constitutional norms & rule of law. Sad- situation is being allowed to drift with no tangible action by authorities,” Dhankhar said on the microblogging site.

    The central agency on Monday morning arrested state ministers Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, TMC MLA Madan Mitra as well as former minister Sovan Chatterjee in connection with the Narada sting case in which politicians were purportedly caught taking money on camera.

    Officials said that the action comes as the central probe agency is likely to file its charge sheet in the case. Dhankhar had recently granted sanction to prosecute all the four leaders, following which the CBI finalised its charge sheet and moved to arrest them.

    The sting operation was purportedly conducted by Mathew Samuel of Narada TV news channel in 2014 wherein some people resembling TMC ministers, MPs and MLAs were allegedly seen receiving money from representatives of a fictitious company in lieu of favours.

    ALSO READ| TMC workers protest outside CBI’s Kolkata office after arrest of ministers, MLA

    The tapes were made public just before the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal. The Calcutta High Court had ordered a CBI probe into the sting operation in March, 2017.

  • Follow lockdown norms, will fight battle legally: TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee to protesting workers

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: Senior Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee on Monday urged party supporters to follow the law and refrain from violating the lockdown norms as they demonstrated in various parts of West Bengal against the arrest of two state ministers and an MLA.

    Abhishek, a Lok Sabha MP who is the nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, said his party will fight the battle legally as it has utmost faith in the judiciary. “I urge everyone to abide by the law and refrain from any activity that violates lockdown norms for the sake of the larger interest of Bengal and its people. We have utmost faith in the judiciary and the battle will be fought legally,” he tweeted.

    I urge everyone to abide by the law & refrain from any activity that violates lockdown norms for the sake of the larger interest of Bengal and its people.We have utmost faith in the judiciary & the battle will be fought legally.
    — Abhishek Banerjee (@abhishekaitc) May 17, 2021

    Hundreds of TMC supporters gathered outside the CBI office at Nizam Palace in Kolkata and protested against the arrest of senior ministers Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee, and TMC MLA Madan Mitra in connection with the Narada sting operation case.

    The CBI also arrested former Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee. At one point, the protest also turned violent with TMC supporters pelting stones and trying to breach the police barricade at the Nizam Palace complex’s main entrance.

    Protests were also held in other places in the city, including outside Raj Bhavan, and the districts with TMC workers blocking roads by burning tyres. West Bengal is at present under complete lockdown that began on Sunday in the wake of the rising COVID-19 cases.

  • Mamata Banerjee: From Bengal’s daughter to the nation’s Didi

    By ANI
    KOLKATA: Striving to prove that “Bangla nijer meyekei chaye” (Bengal wants its own daughter), she continues her stride in the political spectrum of the nation that began in 1975 making the headlines by dancing on the car of the most influential leaders of that time Jayaprakash Narayan as a mark of protest.

    Forty-six years have passed since then; her fighting spirit continues to shine in Indian politics. She is ‘Nation’s Didi’ Mamata Banerjee.

    She became the chief minister of West Bengal in 2011 by ending the 34-year-long CPI(M) regime, one of the longest-serving elected governments in the world. Now after ruling the state for two successive terms, the game of throne of 2021 was not less than a do-or-die situation for her.

    It is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that trespassed her dominion after gaining overwhelming results from the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. And, the emergence of the Left-Congress-ISF alliance made the situation more complicated for her.

    Mamata endorsed her governance as the rule of three ‘M’s, that is, ‘Maa’, ‘Mati’ and ‘Manush’ (mother, soil and people). But, the Bengal elections had another 3M factor this time, that is, ‘Mamata’, ‘Modi’ and ‘Muslim’. So, Mamata’s challenge was to counter Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity in Bengal at one side and regain her support base of the minority community that was impacted by ISF and stepping in of Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM.

    Making the power battle more interesting, Mamata chose Nandigram over her home turf Bhabanipur seat this time to test her fate in the 2021 elections. It was the agitation in Nandigram and Singur against the Left government’s land acquisition policies that made Mamata Banerjee the Chief Minister of West Bengal.

    Further, Mamata’s poll campaign this time got a new dimension with a wheelchair after she suffered an injury in March, 2021 while campaigning in Nandigram.

    It is worth mentioning that the West Bengal Chief Minister spared no dais to launch scathing attacks on Prime Minister Modi. However, the Modi-Mamata battle was quite visible even before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. She played an instrumental role in bringing together all opposition parties against the Centre prior to the 2019 general elections.

    ALSO READ | Bengal elections 2021: Rallies lead to sharp rise in COVID-19 cases

    The seventh-term MP also has been among the first key figures who heavily criticised the central government in issues starting from demonetisation to Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and lockdown to fuel prices. Her fighting spirit and mass appeal have made her one the tallest opposition figures in the current political arena.

    Mamata Banerjee started her political career as a Youth Congress worker in the 1970s. She quickly rose the ranks and became the general secretary of Mahila Congress and later All India Youth Congress. In 1984 she was elwinected as a member of parliament in the 8th Lok Sabha becoming one of India’s youngest parliamentarians. She founded the All India Trinamool Congress in 1997 after a disagreement with Congress.

    Mamata Banerjee worked with three Prime Ministers including PV Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Dr Manmohan Singh. She had been a Union Minister in both National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments and held portfolios like Human Resource Development, Youth Affairs and Sports, Women and Child Development, Coal and Mines and the Railways. Notably, she was the first woman to become a railway minister in the country. The Time Magazine named her among the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012.

    Hailing from a lower-middle-class family, Mamata Banerjee worked as a milk booth vendor to battle poverty. Her father passed away due to the lack of treatment when she was just 17. The fighter in her never let the barriers dominate her. She continued her education and earned a Bachelor’s degree in History, a Master’s degree in Islamic History and degrees in Education and Law from the University of Calcutta. She also worked as a stenographer and a private tutor before joining full-time politics.

    Another disposition of Mamata Banerjee is her minimalist lifestyle. Despite being the Chief Minister, she still lives in her ancestral terracotta-tiled roof house at Kolkata’s Harish Chatterjee Street. White cotton sarees having mono-colour borders and slippers are all that define the fashion statement of Mamata Banerjee.

    The West Bengal Chief Minister is also a self-taught painter, poet and writer. She has authored more than 100 books. She is also tech-savvy and remains active on social media. The Trinamool Supremo is also known for her walkathons or marches. Here it needs to be mentioned that she walks five-six kilometres on a treadmill every day. When it comes to evening snack time, she likes to have tea, puffed rice and ‘aloo chop’.

    As the ‘Khela’ of power in West Bengal ended with the completion of vibrant eight-phased state assembly elections on Thursday, all eyes are on the counting of votes that will take place on Sunday.