KOLKATA: After multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam, now Islamic terror is ruling the roost and turning West Bengal into a safe haven for terrorists. Besides, the upsurge of the BJP is hanging like a Damocles’ sword over Trinamool Congress supremo and state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Against this backdrop, the TMC held an emergency meeting on Friday to chalk out a plan to combat the political scenario.
Mamata held a meeting with all her party leaders, including ministers and MPs at the Trinamool Bhavan and briefed them on the strategy to be employed by the TMC to salvage the situation. She was worried after reports about TMC Rajya Sabha MP Ahemed Hassan aka Imran having links with Jamaat-e-Islami of Bangladesh and providing Saradha funds to the banned organisation to topple Sheikh Hasina-led Government in Bangladesh.
However, several “tainted TMC leaders,” who had been summoned by the ED or the CBI and some celebrity MPs were not present at the meeting.
Mamata addressed the meeting to direct her party leaders how to combat the Opposition on issues such as the Burdwan blast, the alleged involvement of TMC leaders in the Saradha scam and the upsurge of the BJP.
The blast at Khagragarh in Burdwan district on October 2 despite repeated warnings from Central intelligence agencies about Jamaat and its allied organisations operating in West Bengal has vindicated the BJP stand.
With hard evidence furnished even by the state CID about the involvement of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen and other Islamist terror outfits in league with the Indian Mujahideen, which has found West Bengal to be a happy hunting ground, Mamata realised it was time for her to pull up the socks.
Mamata has remained silent after the Burdwan blast, though her party leaders kept on opposing a probe by the NIA.
After the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) directly ordered a probe she made her stand clear only through a Facebook post and squarely blamed the BJP and the Centre, but in vain.
Burdwan blast was followed by several other blasts at the houses of TMC leaders allegedly manufacturing bombs and subsequent discoveries by the NIA and the NSG are certainly a cause of worry for Mamata.
Other than her pet reply -- “maintaining communal harmony” -- she has not been able to reply to the questions posed by the BJP, the CPM and also the Congress.