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Advantage Mamata in slugfest with Centre

IT’S advantage Mamata Banerjee.

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Rasheed Kidwai
Senior journalist & author

IT’S advantage Mamata Banerjee. Just at a time when Rahul Gandhi held a highly successful Jan Akanksha Rally at the Gandhi Maidan in Patna, showcasing himself as a prime ministerial candidate, the West Bengal Chief Minister boisterously upstaged him within four hours. If Rahul had some erstwhile UPA allies standing by his side, Mamata’s support base cuts across regions and a predictable political line-up. NDA ally Shiv Sena found merit in Mamata's cause, so did Odisha’s Naveen Patnaik, Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, young gun Hardik Patel, arch-rival CPI, National Conference’s Omar Abdullah, DMK’s MK Stalin, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s Hemant Soren and many more.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team’s aggressive attempt to question Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar for his alleged link to a chit fund scam has provided Mamata not just the limelight or good optics, but also momentary leadership of all those who are opposed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. If the Modi government, the Union Home Ministry and West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi go further to consider the dismissal of the state government, Mamata would not be a loser. She will emerge in the VP Singh mould of 1989, upstaging not only the Congress but also many of her peers in regional outfits. Even within West Bengal, the BJP has no iconic leadership to match Mamata or the charged Trinamool Congress cadre.

Getting support from most regional leaders, the Chief Minister now has a potent plank of protecting the federal structure and restoring institutional integrity in institutions such as the CBI. The Centre’s move to deploy Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in the Union Government’s offices in the Bengal capital is baffling as law and order is solely a State subject. The CRPF does not have the mandate of the Railway Protection Force or the Defence Security Corps that is empowered to protect railway and defence properties, respectively.

The Congress, which fancies itself as a national alternative to the BJP, is nowhere in sight. For, it has its own chequered history of undermining interest of the states and politicising institutions such as the CBI.

Rahul’s predicaments are many. It is a fact that the Congress was instrumental in getting the Saradha scam probed by the Supreme Court. However, today, the party is not in a position to champion itself as an anti-graft crusader. At the same time, Rahul seems reluctant to stand in the long queue of politicians extending support to Mamata. Rahul may have called Mamata up, tweeted against the Modi government, but that is it. The head of the grand old party is instinctively against the very idea of playing second fiddle to a person who broke from the Congress ranks to achieve a pivotal position on her own strength.

There are many searching questions on why the Modi government opted for this risky course of action. What was the great hurry to nab a serving police officer holding a high rank in Kolkata on a Sunday evening?

After all, the Saradha ponzi scam investigations have been going on since 2013. What is more intriguing is the fact that the (mis)adventure was initiated a day before the new Director of the CBI was to take over. The new occupant, Rishi Kumar Shukla, who was on an Air India flight from Bhopal to New Delhi, had no clue about what was going on in Kolkata and the doings of his number two at the headquarters, Nageshwar Rao. Among other things, Shukla, as the former DGP of Madhya Pradesh, has tons of experience in understanding state sentiments. He has often been a victim of the political slugfest between the BJP and the Congress.

There is a feeling among some retired colleagues that Rao wanted to remain in the CBI and make himself indispensable for the new boss who was about to take over. The crucial issue is whether he had political blessings for any specific objective. The BJP was getting national attention when Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was denied permission to land in Bengal and hold public meetings. Even on the much-debated Citizenship Bill, the BJP in Bengal had the chance to consolidate its position. These issues were a major talking point across West Bengal, but the brazen CBI handling on a Sunday seems to have tilted public opinion against the BJP.

It is also worth pointing out that the conduct of Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar, himself a public servant, has neither been professional nor above board. There were at least two summons to him subsequent to the one which led him to write to the then CBI Director Alok Verma in 2017. In not responding to the summons, Kumar was not complying with the law. The least that was expected from an officer was for him to have written to the Director again or to have sought judicial protection. Perhaps in his first communication, Kumar could have added that he would be happy to clarify doubts and queries in the minds of the CBI team as part of his professional duty and for that purpose requested for a detailed questionnaire.

Somewhere, an impression is gaining ground that Kumar was seeking protection from his state political bosses. In the coming days, such an impression can be highly injurious to him and the service he represents, even if he wishes to join Trinamool Congress in the future.

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