Billowing Worries With Smoke
As skeletons from the cupboard of Bengal’s ruling party Trinamool Congress tumble out one after another with the opening up of “Chit-gate” as the chit fund scandal has inevitably come to be called, the least that chief minister Mamata Banerjee could have done was not stir up another storm with a fresh round of controversial comments. First she announced the setting up of a 500-crore relief fund of sorts for the victims of the nearly 25,000 crore scam, making people wonder why on earth when arrested Sharadha boss Sudipta Sen was directed to refund the investors, she would want to step in and do the honours. Was it corroboration of suspicions about TMC’s involvement with Sharadha at the highest levels? If that wasn’t bad enough for the party, it added insult to its own injury by announcing that the fund would be raised by the arbitrary introduction of taxes on tobacco products. And then came the absolutely damning comments, which sent the incredulous people of Bengal – read “electorate” as the Panchayat elections are just down the line – alternately into fits of anger and paroxysm of laughter for its sheer comic quotient. “Smoke a little more for sometime in order to raise the funds quickly” was the message that the Bengal chief minister sent out to the public.” After two years of the TMC regime many are commenting that Bengal has gone from the frying pan to the fire. And as we know there’s never any smoke without fire.