Mamata vs CBI: This is a classic case of not seeing the wood for the trees

Just in a bid to win some votes in Bengal, or for that matter of Bengali-speaking population of Assam, the Bharatiya Janata Party has not only helped the opposition parties to unite but also created a large number of political opponents across the country.

First, it bungled on the issue of Citizenship Amendment Bill and lost the support of at least eight parties of North-East. Even its ally in Bihar, the Janata Dal United also declared its open backing to these North-East parties on this issue.

By using the Central Bureau of Investigation against the Police Commissioner of Kolkata Rajiv Kumar, the Narendra Modi government alarmed the Biju Janata Dal as the tentacles of the Saradha scam has spread to neighbouring Odisha. The BJD, which has till recently been maintaining equi-distance with both the Congress and BJP, has openly questioned the manner in which the Centre has been using premier investigating agency for its own political objective.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik has for the first time openly criticised the way in which the whole exercise has been undertaken. The BJP had earlier already lost good friend, the Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu. Like Bengal, he had also disallowed CBI to function in that state.

In Bengal, the BJP is trying to project that it wants to get the money of those who lost it because of the scam paid back and that chief minister Mamata Banerjee is creating obstacles. But the party had failed to cut much ice.

True, the saffron party may fill the vacuum created by the decline of the opposition parties, especially the Left, it has its own limitations.

Almost all the surveys done by different agencies suggest that the BJP’s tally may be something between six and eight incoming Lok Sabha election. Even if it manages to win a couple of more seats in Bengal it would be losing a much larger chunk elsewhere in the country.

Whether Mamata has done right or wrong is not the issue here. What is of larger concern is that the CBI has completely lost its credibility, especially after what had happened in its headquarters in the midnight last October.

All those who have been cheated by Saradha Scam know as to how the Director and Special Director––Alok Verma and Rakesh Asthana––had openly traded serious charges of corruption. So they are well aware that they are not going to get their money back. Even the bitterest critic of Mamata on this issue knows that the whole exercise of the BJP has political motive.

Saradha is not the only chit fund scam to rock the country. Perhaps none has ever been politicised though thousands of crores of rupees of poor investors have been swindled.

A few years back the name of a prominent politician from Bihar came up in one such chit fund scam. That gentleman is a Union minister in the present Narendra Modi government. No effort has ever been made to investigate this scam. Whether the charges against this senior politician was true or not could never be known as no one dared to touch him as he knows the art of being on the right side of fence.

One can argue that the CBI has been used in the past to achieve political goal. The allegation may be true.

But perhaps it has never been used by any central government for such a small political gain . By all account the BJP is not going to bring about any miracle in Bengal in the coming election. But in the process, the saffron party has jeopardised all prospects of any post-poll alliance with the neutral parties. The BJP has badly bungled and pushed almost all the parties which want to maintain equidistance with both the Congress and the BJP to the opposition camp.

This is the single biggest achievement of the party.