AFTER YEARS OF SLOW progress in investigating cases, the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate have swung into action in Kolkata. Dozens of high-profile cases—ranging from coal pilferage and cross-border cattle smuggling to money laundering and political murder—are keeping the central agencies busy and the West Bengal government worried.
Both the ED and the CBI in Kolkata have had a makeover in recent times. The CBI has set up a new team of investigators, headed by joint director N. Srinivasan. The ED has received a reinforcement of around 100 officers from Delhi, who have been tasked with clearing bottlenecks in ongoing investigations in cases registered across West Bengal.
Most such cases are not new; but the doggedness with which the agencies are pursuing them is. The ED, which had been probing allegations that 19 ministers in the Trinamool Congress government had assets disproportionate to their known income, made its first big arrest last month. Partha Chatterjee, Trinamool veteran and number two in Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s cabinet, was nabbed on July 23 in a case related to irregularities in the recruitment of schoolteachers. The ED also arrested Chatterjee’s associate Arpita Mukherjee, and unearthed around 050 crore in cash and gold from various properties linked to them. The CBI has arrested two former members of the West Bengal School Service Commission for making “improper” recruitments.
Chatterjee is the fourth Trinamool minister to be arrested in the past 10 years. The other three have been Madan Mitra (in 2014, in the Saradha chit fund case), Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim (both in 2021, in the Narada sting tapes case). The Trinamool had termed the arrests of Mitra, Mukherjee and Hakim as political vendetta, and allowed them to continue as ministers.
Chatterjee, though, was shut out of the party and the government soon after his arrest. The Trinamool leadership—under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, MP—even issued a public apology in response to the allegations against Chatterjee. “We are ashamed of what Partha Chatterjee has done. This is not the Partha we know,” said Hakim, who is still an accused in the Narada case.
The teacher recruitment scam allegedly began in 2016, when Chatterjee was minister of education. Apparently, hundreds of ineligible candidates were appointed as teachers in state-run and government-aided schools, ahead of those who scored high marks in recruitment tests. The ED and the CBI are now investigating whether the illegal appointments happened with the knowledge of Mamata and top Trinamool leaders.
Mamata got another jolt on August 11, when the CBI arrested one of her most trusted aides, Anubrata Mondal. A Trinamool heavyweight known for his fundraising abilities, Mondal controls the party in Birbhum, Purba Burdwan, Paschim Bardhaman, Nadia and Jhargram districts.
According to the CBI, Mondal was involved in the illegal trade of cattle into Bangladesh. Every year, tens of thousands of cattle from West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Assam are reportedly smuggled across the 2,200km-long India-Bangladesh border. The racket reportedly makes around Rs10,000 crore a year, and it allegedly includes politicians, government officials and police, Customs, and Border Security Force personnel.
The CBI says Mondal’s personal guard Sehegal Hossain was in touch with the racket’s kingpin, Enamul Haque. During interrogation, Sehegal reportedly told investigators that he took bribes from Haque for each cattle smuggled across the border from Birbhum and Murshidabad districts.
The ED and the CBI are also investigating Mondal’s role in the alleged pilferage of coal from the state-run Eastern Coalfields Limited. The CBI has already arrested four ECL officials, including a general manager, and several Trinamool leaders close to Abhishek Banerjee. Mondal, however, has received Mamata’s strong backing. Critics attribute it to the fact that Abhishek and his wife, Rujira, were also questioned in the same cases.
Mondal’s arrest seems to have unnerved Mamata. With panchayat elections due early next year, Mamata and Abhishek have started efforts to revamp the party by replacing tainted veterans with younger leaders. Mamata apparently expects more party leaders to be arrested in the next few months. The ED recently sent a notice to Public Works Minister Moloy Ghatak in connection with the coal pilferage case. A few Trinamool legislators are also reportedly under the ED and CBI scanner.
“With these investigations under way, the criminals [in the Trinamool] would all go to jail one by one,” said Dilip Ghosh, national vice president of the BJP. “Also note that this time, there has been no resistance from her party against central agencies. The agencies are carrying out the arrests with the help of Central Reserve Police Force personnel.”
Senior Trinamool leaders, however, are confident that the party would weather the recent setbacks. The leadership changes in the grassroots are expected to strengthen the Trinamool ahead of the panchayat polls. “[Abhishek Banerjee] has decided that there would be no repeat of the violence in the 2018 panchayat elections,” said Sougata Roy, party leader and Lok Sabha member. “Opposition parties would get the opportunity to fight the election, and there would be a level playing field.”
According to him, the Trinamool would continue benefiting from Mamata’s image, which apparently remains untarnished. “So long as she is there,” said Roy, “these arrests by central agencies would not have any impact politically.”