Bengal land scam: Advantage CPM

The nexus between land mafias and senior Trinamool leaders in the Rajarhat land scam has become a cause of  embarrassment for Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee.

The scam led to the scrapping of the Rajarhat information technology project which was supposed to house Wipro and Infosys, among other IT majors.

Gangster Gaffar Hussain Mollah, who was arrested for his involvement in scam, confessed to police that he received the patronage of top Trinamool leaders in striking the illegal land deals.

The Trinamool leaders named by Mollah were Bhangar MLA Arabul Islam and his brother, Sirajul Islam, former Rajarhat legislator Tanmoy Mandal, Rajarhat municipality commissioner Sukhen Chakrabarty and the former municipality opposition leader Shankar Narayan Dutta. Mollah said Sirajul, who is missing, accompanied him on many occasions with arms.

Mamata has summarily terminated the party membership of Mandal, Chakarbarty and Dutta. She will punish Arabul if he was found guilty. “The law will take its own course if Arabul is found guilty. I will not protect him. But it seems that CPM is conspiring to frame Arabul,” she said.

Political analysts said the land scam has given the CPM a fresh lease of life. “The CPM will now argue that their policy of state government’s direct involvement in land acquisition was correct.The Left will also allege that the Trinamool was opposing the state government’s land acquisition attempts to allow land mafias to seal private deals,” a senior political analyst said.