Leader names tossed in deposit pot

TT, Calcutta, April 20: The names of several prominent Trinamul leaders are tumbling out for their alleged overt or covert association with companies illegally mobilising deposits as reports of panic among lakhs of investors across Bengal have begun to come in.

Trinamul Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh, who had worked as the Saradha Group’s media CEO till early this month, has drawn the most flak within the party, but the alleged association of other leaders with these sham firms has become the talking point in Trinamul.

“It is an embarrassment. We may say that these companies came up during Left rule, but our leaders had publicly hobnobbed with these companies,” said a senior Trinamul leader. “Kunal’s involvement with Saradha was known to everybody. But there were others too.”

Sources said this evening that Ghosh had been given a week to step down as MP. Ghosh was unavailable for comment. Mukul Roy, entrusted with the responsibility of tackling the crisis, said he was not aware of such a decision.

A source said: “There is a demand in the party that heads must roll.”

Trinamul’s association with the Saradha Group was evident as senior leaders, including Mamata Banerjee, were seen at programmes organised by the company. The group’s media outfits had become the party’s mouthpieces in the past two years as Saradha expanded its operations by floating new companies in Bengal and beyond, especially in the Northeast.

“Kunal had become the face of Saradha. Other senior leaders, like Mukul Roy, too were close to the group and were in regular touch with its owner (chairman and MD) Sudipto Sen,” a Trinamul source said.

Roy, sources said, was also close to the owners of some other companies that have been illegally mobilising deposits from the public with the promise of returns that banks and recognised finance companies can never match.

The Trinamul MP from Diamond Harbour, Somen Mitra, had blown the whistle on the mushrooming sham companies illegally mobilising funds during Trinamul rule and taken the matter up with the Prime Minister. The Left too had raised the issue in the Assembly.

“Roy was instrumental in making party MP Tapas Paul a director in one such company,” said a source.

Paul denied he was a member of the company’s board of directors. “I was asked to act in some ad films and a feature film produced by the company. They paid me for my performance. I was never a director in the company,” he said.

Other leaders such as Madan Mitra, who headed the employees’ union at Saradha, too are trying to distance themselves from the discredited companies.

“These allegations are false. No Trinamul leader is involved with any such company. These companies got their licence during Left rule,” Roy said. Publicly, Roy gave Ghosh a clean chit, saying he was only an “employee”.

Piyali Mukherjee, the lawyer and Trinamul student leader who died under mysterious circumstances last month, was one of Saradha’s legal advisers. She was associated with several key Trinamul ministers and leaders.

“She was included among the company’s legal advisers on the request of a minister,” a source said.

There have been reports about a six-page letter that Sudipto Sen purportedly sent to the chief minister detailing how some Trinamul leaders were pressuring him for favours.

At a Channel 10 interview late tonight, Ghosh described himself as a “mere employee” in a company “where all decisions were taken by Sudipto Sen”.

Some party leaders blamed Mamata for allowing Ghosh a free run. “He started sharing the dais with her at public meetings during the 2011 Assembly polls,” a leader said.

“That was before he had joined the party. He was asked to anchor the first July 21 rally after Trinamul came to power. He was the one who advised Mamata to join hands with Mulayam Singh Yadav before the presidential polls. She cannot deny responsibility.”

Another section feels that Ghosh may eventually become a “scapegoat” in Mamata’s attempt to keep Trinamul safe from a backlash in the villages, where lakhs may have fallen victim to sham companies’ money-making schemes.

“Saradha is not the only such company; there are others that are still operating. If the government is serious about tackling this menace, action must be taken against these companies too,” a Trinamul MP said.