#dnaEdit: Secular front, a mirage

Former Trinamool Congress (TMC) Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh’s sensational attempt to commit suicide in his prison cell in the wee hours of Friday was an interesting sideshow in the humdrum investigations into the Saradha scam. Ghosh  had made a grand show of his promise — he had told the city sessions court on Monday that he would take his life within three days if he was not granted bail. And now, he hopes to grab more eyeballs with his hunger strike since Tuesday. A once-confident Ghosh who had boasted of dragging the TMC top leadership down if he was ever incarcerated for his alleged role in the multi-crore chit fund scam is nowhere near achieving success. The string of arrests by the CBI and Enforcement Directorate was of minnows — he is the only high profile accused behind bars. By staunchly conservative estimates, Sudipta Sen, the mastermind and proprietor of Saradha, raised Rs8,000-crore from Bengal by luring the poor with the promise of attractive returns. Though it is an astronomical amount, Sen conducted most of his illegal operations, including bribing his way through the corridors of power, in cash. That has left virtually no scope to track the money trail. It explains why, in spite of damaging testimonies by Ghosh against a few powerful leaders of the state government, the CBI could do little but summon a couple of familiar faces — artist Suvaprasanna and textile minister Shyamapada Mukherjee for interrogation. 

A paranoid state police force determined to stop the suspended MP from speaking to the media has been accused of behaving insensitively and roughing him up, even when it knew that the man had nothing new to divulge. It is a measure of desperation of the TMC leadership, especially Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, whose image and credibility have taken a beating because of her party’s close association with Saradha enterprises. The BJP has gained even more ground after the Burdwan blasts by linking the scam with terror financing. The allegation that the chit-fund money had crossed over to Bangladesh to finance the radical Jamaat-e-Islami is based on inconclusive proof, but the saffron party continues to play on perceptions.

Banerjee is well aware of the growing disenchantment with her, and BJP’s Bengal aggression, especially in Kolkata and the border towns and districts; so are the Left and the Congress who are virtually reduced to fringe parties in the state. As speculated by some, the meeting and the photo-ops at Jawaharlal Nehru’s 125th birth anniversary celebrations could be a precursor to the secular front to stem the saffron party’s blitzkreig. However, the odds against the TMC forging an alliance with the Congress and the CPI-M are high. Left leader Sitaram Yechury has already scotched the possibility of a tie-up with the TMC. His decision might have been guided by the ground realities in Bengal where Left cadres were at the receiving end of TMC violence during panchayat and Lok Sabha elections. The Left’s support base too is severely eroded with sympathisers seeking refuge in TMC and BJP. 
There is, however, a faint possibility of the CPI-M joining hands with the Congress in the state in the 2016 assembly elections. The Chit Fund Sufferers’ Unity Forum where both the parties are fighting unitedly to bring relief to Saradha victims has brought together Abdul Mannan of the Congress and CPI-M’s Sujan Chakraborty.

Bengal’s fractured and discredited opposition — the Congress and the Left — has also bolstered the BJP’s chances to emerge as a counterpoint to Banerjee. It remains to be seen how the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah magic translates into votes in a state with a significant Muslim population and where caste equations are virtually non-existent.