Explained: How Mamata Banerjee has turned her back on arrested minister Partha Chatterjee

It’s been three days that West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee has been arrested in connection to the alleged school recruitment scam.

What is most surprising about the arrest is that the Trinamool Congress (TMC) — led by Mamata Banerjee — which is known to hit the streets to protest and oppose everything they don’t agree with, has not done the same for someone who is perceived to be Banerjee’s ‘right hand man’ and third within the organisation’s heirarchy.

Partha Chatterjee, who has been a veteran minister in the Banerjee Cabinet, was arrested on 23 July when Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials recovered Rs 20 crore in cash from his close aide Arpita Mukherjee’s house. The said amount, lying in heaps in her house, are connected to the irregularities in the recruitment of teachers, clerks and staff in state-run schools, as per the investigating authorities.

So, is this the case of Mamata turning her back on her trusted lieutenant? Is the TMC distancing itself from Partha Chatterjee?

Mamata doesn’t answer Partha’s calls

On the night of 23 July when Partha Chatterjee, the serving minister of industry, commerce and enterprise in the state, was arrested, he is reported to have made three phone calls to the TMC supremo, but his calls went unanswered.

NDTV reported that Chatterjee’s ‘Arrest Memo’ showed that the 69-year-old leader opted to call his boss, Mamata.

His first call to her after his arrest was made at 2.33 am. “He called her but she didn’t take his call,” the memo stated.

He then tried again at 3.37 am and 9.35 am, but found no luck.

Party leader Firhad Hakim denied that Chatterjee has made calls to the TMC chief.

TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh also questioned the need to reveal who Chatterjee called in the arrest memo.

"This (mention of the calls made by Chatterjee to the chief minister in the arrest memo) was unnecessary and unwarranted. The person whom Chatterjee tried to call has nothing to do with this. Why the ED has mentioned all these in the arrest memo, only they can justify," Ghosh was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.

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Mamata’s reaction

The arrest has garnered a very muted response from the TMC and its boss as well.

Following Partha’s arrest, the TMC only held a press conference in which Kunal Ghosh clearly stated that action will be taken against Chatterjee if the courts find him guilty. They also demanded a time-bound investigation.

On Monday, a day when Partha Chatterjee was flown to AIIMS-Bhubaneswar after he complained of chest pains, Mamata Banerjee broke her silence on the issue.

She said she doesn’t support corruption and wouldn’t mind “if life imprisonment is awarded to those who are guilty”.

Addressing an award function of the state government in Kolkata, she said , “We have full faith in the judiciary. There has to be a time frame within which the truth and the court’s verdict must be out. If anyone is proven guilty, then he or she must be punished. The party, too, will take action. But, I condemn the malicious campaign against me,” she said.

A malicious campaign is running large.
Trinamool Congress has always believed in the due process of law. We have never believed in undue trials.

However, we will not stand for people who try to begin a mudslinging spree over a matter under trial. pic.twitter.com/XANOAEPhJN

— All India Trinamool Congress (@AITCofficial) July 25, 2022

On the finding of the Enforcement Directorate regarding Arpita Mukherjee, a ‘close associate’ of Partha Chatterjee, of running at least 12 shell companies, the chief minister said, “truth must come out but within a time frame. If the truth is established then I wouldn’t mind if life imprisonment is awarded to those who are guilty.”

Disowning Arpita Mukherjee, the chief minister said that she doesn’t know the lady from whose house cash was recovered and also didn’t know whose ‘friend’ she was.

“Just because I share the stage with someone at a pujo event, that doesn’t mean I am associated with that person,” she said.

A very different reaction

Mamata’s reaction to the Partha Chatterjee arrest is a far removed from how she has been in the past.

In May 2021, when Firhad Hakim, Madan Mitra, Subrata Mukherjee and Shovan Chatterjee were arrested by the Centraul Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the Narada bribery case, scores of TMC workers gheraoed CBI’s headquarters in Kolkata at Nizam Palace, and the BJP state headquarters.

Banerjee too stormed the CBI office and staged a dharna which lasted about six hours, demanding the unconditional release of the four leaders in the case, or to arrest her too.

West Bengal: TMC Ministers Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, MLA Madan Mitra & Former Mayor Sovhan Chatterjee were brought to the CBI office in connection with Narada Scam

— ANI (@ANI) May 17, 2021

Prior to this, she had sat on a two-day dharna at Kolkata’s Esplanade when the CBI tried to arrest then Kolkata Police Commissioner, and Banerjee’s blue-eyed boy Rajeev Kumar, in relation to the Saradha chit-fund case in 2019.

She had also hit out at the BJP-led Central government in 2017 when TMC MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay was arrested in the Rose Valley chit fund case.

TMC’s precarious situation

Many believe that the muted support to Chatterjee is because the TMC knows that if they fully back him they stand to further anger the thousands of SSC aspirants who may be feeling ‘betrayed’ and have been protesting for almost 500 days now.

Also as one TMC leader opined that the optics are not good in this matter.

“It is a great embarrassment for the party. Previously, when party leaders were arrested by the ED or the CBI, our leadership always stood beside them. But, this time the recovery of huge sum of money has put the party on the back foot. Just the day before (the raids), at the mega Shaheed Diwas rally, Abhishek Banerjee told party workers that there was no space for corrupt leaders in the TMC. Within 48 hours, how could the party have stood beside a leader who was arrested after the recovery of more than Rs 20 crore from his close aide’s flat?” said the leader in an Indian Express report.

However, the party can’t expel Chatterjee, as The Quint explains, because it would provide the central agencies more incentive to go after more TMC leaders.

Opposition slams TMC

The BJP and CPI(M) in West Bengal have said that the TMC is distancing itself from the minister and making him the scapegoat in the scam.

Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP said no one would believe that the TMC's top leadership was unaware of the scam, which allegedly happened when Chatterjee was the education minister.

“Such comments are laughable. The investigating agencies must investigate the money trail. The TMC top brass is now trying to distance itself from Partha Chatterjee as if he is solely responsible for everything. The TMC is trying to make him a scapegoat,” Adhikari said.

“What is stopping the state government from sacking Partha Chatterjee as a cabinet minister? This proves that the TMC supports corruption,” he added.

CPI(M) state secretary Mohammed Salim termed it an old trick of the TMC to distance itself from leaders caught in corruption cases.

“When TMC leaders were arrested in Saradha and Rose Valley scams, the party tried to wash off its hands. Why blame a few leaders when the entire party is structurally corrupt,” he alleged.

With inputs from agencies

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